By Kelly Jiang and Jessie Ye, Features Editors

Writing her first song at eight years old, junior Nissabelle Rianom has always been fond of music. Recently, she released her newest single “What’s Your Name Again,” on the streaming platform Spotify. Since the release, The Classic spoke to her about her experience, inspirations, and future plans. 

Recalling her earliest experiences with singing and songwriting, Nissabelle shared that she wrote her first song “Break My Heart Into Pieces” at eight years old. “It was about this breakup my aunt had and I was just moved by it, and I wrote it in the Notes app on my iPad,” Nissa said. Following this, Nissa started making music more seriously in seventh grade and has since posted many song covers on SoundCloud and Instagram. “It truly helped me through a lot of things I went through because I always put all of my emotion and thought into a song just to get something off my chest or put out a message of some sort,” she explained. 

Describing music as “therapy but without a therapist,” Nissabelle said, “Music is my way of putting myself out there and saying things that I wouldn’t have the guts to say myself.”

Many of Nissabelle’s friends have encouraged her to publish on Spotify, and she released “What’s Your Name Again” on October 28 after three days of production. “Once I wrote [the song], I sent it to my best friend and she told me to post it on Spotify… I decided why not, and she helped me through the entire process, from editing the cover art to being my ‘manager,’” she said. Her best friend, junior Vera Wang, who has known Nissa for 6 years, shared, “When she first sent me the song in the form of a voice memo, I immediately asked her for the lyrics and it became stuck in my head for days. That was when I told her that she had to release to streaming platforms so others could hear it.”

Nissabelle’s song “What’s Your Name Again” takes inspiration from the 90’s sitcom Girlfriend. The main protagonist Joan had a “three-month rule” for her relationships in which she would wait three months before they got serious, resulting in many of her boyfriends leaving the relationship. “That really stood out to me because she had spent all this time and effort on someone and then they just left due to something more superficial,” Nissabelle explained. “I want people to feel good about themselves for getting through that experience and coming out of it with the realization of their self worth.”

Though initially hesitant to release her single on Spotify, Nissa shared that she is “so thankful for all of the support and love [she’s] received from doing so!” 

“I really loved it,” said junior Zarif Rahman. “It was cool seeing the song on Spotify and I was able to stream it easily.” 

“‘What’s Your Name Again?’ reflects maturity and showcases her newly equipped skills, and I’m immensely proud of how far she’s come. I’m so excited for everybody to hear what she’s been working on,” Vera added.  

In the future, Nisabelle hopes to continue to make songs that will resonate with her listeners. “With every song I write, I always want to make sure that I’m executing a certain feeling and doing it correctly because I think that’s the most important part of music,” she said. “I don’t know where my music will take me but I know that I want to continue creating, even if it helps just one person feel good about being themselves.”

Photo courtesy of Nissabelle Rianom