Alynda Lee Segarra (of Hurray for the Riff Raff) talks back

Hurray for the Riff Raff’s new studio record, The Navigator, is a narrative concept album telling the story of a character, Navita, who resembles Alynda. Navita Milagros Negrón grows up poor and vulnerable on urban streets, but empowered by love and community, she overcomes fear to lead her people.

Navita discovers self-confidence set to Alynda’s soothing vocals and her new backing band’s Caribbean percussion. Kansas City– based Juan-Carlos Chaurand and Devendra Banhart’s drummer Gregory Rogove supplied the Cuban, Puerto Rican and Brazilian backing beats. It’s her first album without her fiddle player, Yosi Perlstein, but there’s still plenty of folk sound to the early songs, before Navita grows into maturity midway through, to a soundtrack of son montuno, plena and salsa sounds.

New Orleanians got a sampling of Navita’s story on Ash Wednesday with a solo prerelease show at Euclid Records—an event so packed that people stood on the stairs and reached over the aisles to see Alynda preface songs with songwriting inspiration. She asked the audience if New Orleans would be a good place to stage The Navigator as a play, which was her original intention. The crowd erupted, so look out Marigny Opera House and Southern Rep Theatre.

You just dropped some amazing news.

I got engaged at the railroad tracks! That spot on the tracks at Press and Burgundy is where I started playing music. I guess I played some when I was a kid, but that’s where I was with my friends Barnibus and Kiawa, and we were all these little hobo kids. I had my washboard. We would just hang out there at night. I would just strum along, scratch along, and that’s where they were like, ‘You’re pretty good at harmonizing. We should all go busk together.’ So that’s where it all began, gathering there at the railroad tracks at night. That’s where I did a lot of listening, you know.

You say your ‘boyfriend’ proposed but now he’s—

My fiancée! [Laughs] Crazy. On my 30th birthday, too.

And it’s Mardi Gras season.