Gedina is making waves with her inspiring and magnetic mermaid-pop sound! She has a new single dropping on Friday called “Transformer,” the follow-up to her recent power anthem, “Messy,” that was released in August. “Transformer” is a feel-good track that encourages listeners to look inward and rise up to be their best selves, motivated to take on the world and bring their life to the next level.
“I’m over the moon about it. I can’t wait.”
Gedina credits her love of Disney’s The Little Mermaid on how her mermaid-pop brand came to be. She said she’d play it on repeat as a young girl.
“It was everything that I was exposed to as a kid and growing up in Santa Cruz in a surfing community, mermaids are the thing. It was just a rite of passage that I wanted to be Ariel, I wanted to sing, I wanted to make music and it was how I owned my voice and owned my power right alongside being a surfing mermaid.”
“Mermaids represent transformation. They represent both the authenticity of being human and the magic of being a human capable of shifting and moving at any moment. They’re able to breathe underwater, and they’re able to enroll and bring people into their greatest with their voice, so they represent the rally cry of a mermaid mentality: someone who takes on life boldly, who swims fast, who can take on breakdowns and turn them into breakthroughs. That is the representation of mermaid-pop. It’s in every single note, every single lyric. Every single piece of music that you hear is reflected with big drum sounds and aqua-esque type synthesizers, clamshell type sounds in the music itself… it’s just swimming with mermaids.”
Gedina’s journey in music might’ve begun with The Little Mermaid, but it grew with her discovery B.B. King, Etta James and Aretha Franklin. She decided to try something new and tried out for American Idol and The Voice.
“At that point I was just winging it. It was just on faith that this is something different, let’s try something new, and the experience was beautiful… Ultimately I was really happy with the outcome, seeing as I wasn’t really on my path yet. I wasn’t really being the person that I am today because I hadn’t really done the work to become this person. So, I needed to go through life a bit more and really take myself on in order to be an authentic representation of what it means to go through the washer, if you will.. . Those two big shifts highlighted from my career are really what has moved me into owning what I’m creating today and making it something that’s not just about me, but it’s me, offering and giving and creating value for the world.”
Gedina took that energy and her experience and channeled it into music that not only empowers others, but empowers herself.
“When I started to take on myself and go through different healing processes, I was desperate for valuable information that would support me during that process so I fell in love with ASMR and guided meditations. I took on martial arts as a whole new way of healing my body, and what was missing for me was music that complemented everything I was up to. I was listening to Bernie Brown and doing TED Talks and I couldn’t find anything in the music realm that spoke to me the way that they did. I didn’t have an Oprah in the music industry, I didn’t have Bernie Brown or Marianne Williamson and so I just said ‘you know what? I’m gonna make it.’ I’m gonna make that music that says ‘yeah, I’m a badass, I’m a giant too. I’m a transformer, I can be messy, I can be vulnerable and it’s cool’… I can find something that lyrically is in alignment with affirming myself and affirming themselves so that’s what inspired me to continue and to start creating this and it ultimately led to me starting the record label, which is all about creating a lane of transformational music that will support and enhance people’s lives.
Gedina started 4th Door Records under the inspiration of Alex Banayan’s book “The Third Door.” It reflects on the nightclub analogy where there are three ways one can enter a nightclub. There’s the general admission line, the VIP line or the kitchen door.
“Ultimately, with my label, I’m creating and looking to move my way into the music industry “nightclub”, if you will, through the third door, creating a different way in… What we’re offering, the value that we’re creating in the lane of music, hasn’t been made before. So, once we’re into the “nightclub” for continuing the analogy, we’ll open a fourth door, and we’ll create another way for people to enter that won’t require them to go through doors one, two or three.”
“Out of My Shell” is Gedina’s second album, following a successful debut “Tell’em,” in 2018.
“The album itself is the journey of transformation and it starts with a really confronting breakdown. So, it’s something that people might do a Scooby Doo moment and say ‘I don’t understand this, it doesn’t make sense’ but it really speaks to like ‘hey me too, I’ve been through it, and I know what it’s like to be spiraling down’… The album starts with the song that really speaks to that. And then, it moves from is this breakdown going to break me or is it going to serve me in having a breakthrough. The album then offers breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough and ultimately leading into the last song which speaks to creating a world we all want to live in. The political environments, racial injustice, people dying from a pandemic, the climate is up to us to convert. It’s up to us to confront, expose, turn over and have each of us individually stand in our power and own authentically what our gifts are and so the album offers that process over and over again.”
“Out of My Shell” doesn’t have an official release date yet, but we can expect to see it early next year. The album’s first single “Transformer” will be available to stream internationally across music DSPs on October 16.
You can follow Gedina on social media with her handle @iamgedina
