Words and Photos by Vienna Gaspar
On Friday night, singer-songwriter Raffaella opened for Annie DiRusso’s Back in Town Tour at San Francisco’s The Independent. New York raised and Minneapolis based, Raffaella Meloni simply goes by her first name. As a fan of Raffaella since the release of her hit single “Blonde” in 2022, I was thrilled to finally see her perform live. I arrived right as doors opened and joined the queue that wrapped around the building. The line moved efficiently, and I managed to secure a spot in the second row.
The emerging pop artist came on stage at 9:15, sporting metallic sunglasses and a bright red top. Despite the late hour, Raffaella’s entrance made the room come alive. She began her set with “drama queen.” from her EP LIVE, RAFF, LOVE (Act I). She poked fun at being called a drama queen with the chorus: “I’m getting by you by the skin of my teeth / Pretty please, oh my god I’m just a drama queen.”
The song is the perfect introduction to Raffaella’s world, a polly pocket playset infused with the lingering scent of marijuana. Raffaella uses her music and performances to satirize gender roles, playing the part of a complaisant doll. As she stated in a 2017 interview with The Standard while still using the moniker Råff, “Most of my music mixes pretty and flighty melodies with heavy and subversive lyrics. I try my best to find the complexity of an experience within a simple way of expression.” The juxtaposition between her melodies and lyrics is even more effective live — Raffaella’s humor truly shines through.
Tossing her sunglasses to the floor, Raffaella dedicated her next song “Man of Your Dreams” from LIVE, RAFF, LOVE (Act II) to the headliner. She explained that if anyone is perfect, it’s Annie DiRusso. This track is about overpromising and attempting to please a boyfriend: “I can fit in anything, I can be your remedy / Budget is no object, profit of a prophet / I can pay for everything, let me pay for everything.”
Raffaella’s energy was infectious, and she easily carried us through the two unreleased songs in her set. With each word the crowd fell more in love with her. She told us the story behind the upbeat track “Buick” — an on and off relationship with a guy who kept smoking away his memory of their breakups. In “Buick”, Raffaella is refreshingly open about her contribution to a dysfunctional relationship. She admits, “I don’t really mind / If I hurt your feelings, feeling good’s expensive / Do it all the time / I don’t really, I don’t, I don’t really mind.”
The audience’s favorite song appeared to be “Polly Pocket”, a hyperpop satire about reproductive rights from LIVE, RAFF, LOVE (Act II). In the song, Raffaella likens herself to a Polly Pocket, criticizing the objectification of female bodies by the government and larger society. She playfully sings that she has “Got a polly in my pocket / And she looks like me / And her very best friend is my IUD / And I know I’m picking one of them eventually.” Her theater background came through as she twirled like a ballerina in a young girl’s jewelry box. Repeating the line “If you want me to keep it / Maybe you should carry it,” with a cool and collected tone, Raffaella sent a chill through the room.
Another notable mention was “Blonde,” my personal favorite. In what I took to be a reference to child star Jojo Siwa, Raffaella explained that the song was written while “[she] was a blonde, but now [she’s] a brown.” This song is about the pursuit of the unattainable beauty standard, an experience that clearly resonated with the crowd as “Blonde” became a passionate singalong. Poking fun at the dumb blonde trope, Raffaella started the song with the line “You would be a lot happier if I were blonde.” Her resentment of the beauty standard grows throughout the song, and in the second verse the lyric becomes “You would be a lot sluttier if you were blonde.” Raffaella’s performance at The Independent followed a similar arc, as her movements turned from those of another popstar to a doll that came alive. Ironically, the later songs in her set were more vocal in their social commentary — something that can be interpreted as alluding to the notion that a doll is more likely to be heard than a young woman.
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