At the end of the month dedicated to LGBTQIAP+ Pride, singer and songwriter Jona Poeta releases his new single and clip, “Último Gesto”, lovingly and lightly approaching the end of a relationship. The song, which was left out of her previous EP, brings a mature look at a lived story and seeks indulgence in relation to her ex-partner. The launch aims to highlight the beauty and complexity of love in all its forms.
The clip, recorded in Florianópolis, breaks with normative models and presents a narrative that expresses the depth and intensity of a love story between two men. The work seeks to deconstruct stereotypes and affirm the validity of romantic affections, without restrictions or moderation. The new single marks a new phase in Jona Poeta’s career, which approaches the classic sound of MPB with contemporary touches.
How did the inspiration for the song “Último Gesto” come about and why did you decide to release it now?
I wrote the verses a little after calming down about the breakup that inspired the songs on my first EP “Soltei” in 2020, it was a tribute to everything I felt, a more generous recap of that story, a look at me without pain, but I forgot of those lyrics, until I found them again in 2021 and started composing and finished production in 2022, I held off the release until I managed to record the clip, I wanted to tell the story well, you know? The lyrics are intense and without the video I wasn’t sure if the homage would be noticed.
What is the message you want to convey with this song regarding relationships and breakups?
I want to normalize for people the fact that some loves are still alive despite breakups, love survives breakups, and there’s nothing wrong with that and that doesn’t stop new stories and new loves from co-inhabiting us. And that we understand, that the ends of relationships will happen, there will be ends, nothing in life is eternal, and when it ends it hurts, a lot, it’s a breakup, what do we expect? The pain of separation is a fair price to pay for what love gives us and transforms us.
How was the process of producing the song and how would you describe its sound?
It was quite challenging to get away from the obvious without making frills in the name of an innocuous innovation, the song carries the classic structure of a romantic MPB, Part A, Remarkable chorus, Part B, Remarkable chorus, and I really like this structure, but how the production came in 2022 when me and my producers Binho Manenti and Renan Ribeiro were flirting more with Pop, when we even released “Perdi Você” and “Eu menti pra você” it also brings electronic elements of Pop, Indie Pop. This intertwining of classic MPB with an electronic contemporaneity will be on my next EP, which I will release later this year, this mix will come through innovation and daring.
The clip for “Último Gesto” has narrative elements of a romance between two men. What is the importance of representing different ways of loving in your work?
It’s showing that our loves are beautiful, real, deep and complex, as well as the loves of cis-straight people too. I see many representations and little representation when they portray our stories. I am a bisexual man, so I break the gay bubble a little, but I realize that structurally most gay men did not have romantic affective references in their construction, this space is denied and brings the marginalization of homoaffective affections, and self-denial of this space as well , as if our loves were a second category of feeling, not the same as that of a cis-hetero couple. The only romantic reference this community has been exposed to is the classic normative and cis-hetero relationship of most telenovelas, novels and music videos, this model does not support most of us.
How would you describe the evolution of your musical style throughout your career?
I think I was tremendously lucky and blessed to start my career with the production of Dandara Manoela and Binho Manenti, I had verses and a big dream, I didn’t even know how to sing properly and they guided me a lot in that beginning. It was a plural sound on the EP, although everything was very tied together, it was very diverse, a very strong MPB vein, but the synths and electronics were already present. I felt much less in a position to give an opinion at that moment so I followed what they brought with ideas and comments, although both Dandara and Binho pushed me a lot to make all the decisions, I more agreed and respected the path of these incredible people that I had to lucky to cross path. Now, 4 years later, I know a lot more than before and I still have a lot, a lot to learn,
How do you think the public will react to this new song, especially in regards to its mature approach to break-ups?
I believe it is a reaction of relief, to see yourself in that work and understand that you are not the only people who feel that. People are socially ashamed of breakups and are so pressured to kill the love they feel for someone they had a relationship with, that they silence it in themselves and then it’s bad, the love that lasts after the pain of the breakup, is a pleasant memory of a period of life that we share a path with someone, it is beautiful to honor with a mature longing the time, energy and dedication that someone gave us in a past relationship.
Besides the release of “Último Gesto”, what are your future plans in terms of music and artistic projects?
I’m working on my second EP, with 6 new tracks that will come out of this Pop moment that I brought in the most recent releases, not permanently, because pop is beautiful, but it’s a sound for an audience that already has some road with love , who sits on the balcony on a quiet Tuesday night with a glass of wine listening to visceral songs by Buarque, Maysa, Filipe Catto to revisit the confusing stories they lived through, but with a pleasurable interest in that tangle of anachronistic and disconnected memories. The EP will be a visual album so right now we are working on music and audiovisual production to fulfill our dream of releasing it in the coming months.
How do you see the role of music in promoting diversity and inclusion, especially in the LGBTQIAP+ context?
I think it’s fundamental, art for me is first and foremost a need for expression, because I was a queer child silenced by violence and beatings, I behaviorally mutilated myself at a very tender age to stop being beaten for being an effeminate boy, I am today the result of this strategy of my child self to escape daily aggressions, I am a standard and masculine cis-white man, full of passability, but that reminds me that my self today, …. I am the product of the violence that I I suffered, and music, like all the other arts I have the opportunity to do, is a vein of expression for everything that has been silenced in me over the years, which is why my video clips always bring these themes,to first pacify my fag child Jona who still cries inside me and so that our context is more and more normalized in the musical and artistic production that leads to so many social changes, I want to dream that when consuming me some adults understand the beauty and naturalness of our existences and that they do not violate their LGBTQIAP+ children or allow them to be violated.
What are your main musical influences and how are they reflected in your current music?
Chico Buarque and Cazuza, although they come from very different social backgrounds from mine, and had access to art much earlier in life than I did, I find myself inspired by their works and trajectories, by the lexicon of the lyrics, the perspicacity of the verses and stanzas of their songs, the themes and the non-place of a good singer that they were given at some point. As I was only musicalized as an adult after the social displacement, I found myself feeling like an imposter a lot when going on stage or entering the studio to sing, but the haughtiness of both inspired me to keep going and do the best with what I had in me every time that a microphone was in front of me.
What do you hope listeners will take away from listening to “Último Gesto” and watching the clip?
That you don’t need to be forever angry with a story you lived with someone, just because it ended, nothing in life lasts forever, life itself has an end. My clip is a tribute to the beautiful story I lived, which inspired 6 beautiful songs and which resides in me in the place of the best memories. The pain I felt at the end was a fair price to pay when I look at the many beautiful things this love has brought me.
Follow Jona Poeta on Instagram