Rising Cuban-American singer-songwriter Gigi Perez celebrates her Vevo DSCVR Artist of the Yr title with an intimate visible journey again to the place it began.
Vevo has launched Again to the Seaside, a brief movie that includes stay performances of “Fable” and “Sugar Water” from Perez’s critically-acclaimed debut album On the Seaside, In Each Life.
Shot in Palm Seaside, Florida, the movie brings the 25-year-old artist again to Village Music Cafe, the intimate venue the place she first honed her craft at open mic nights.
“Sooner or later, I drove by the mall and seen that there was an open mic,” Perez recollects within the movie. “Ever since that day I walked by the doorways, the house owners, Steven and Donna, took me in as their very own child, their musical youngster.”
The DSCVR Artist of the Yr honour locations Perez alongside earlier recipients Reneé Rapp and Chappell Roan, recognising her meteoric rise all through 2025. The yr noticed her carry out 65 reveals to over 700,000 folks, a stark distinction to the small cafe setting the place she constructed her confidence as a performer.
“Fable,” carried out at Village Music Cafe within the movie, holds explicit significance for Perez. The monitor closes with a voicemail from her late older sister Celine, a second that has resonated with a whole bunch of 1000’s of followers throughout her tour dates this yr.
For a deeper have a look at the music’s highly effective message, learn our deep dive into the lyrics and which means of “Fable.”
“Realizing that her voice has reached that many individuals, even when it was only for a second within the set, that second comes on the very finish of the music the place I really feel her reverberate by so many individuals,” she shares.
The movie additionally captures a touching second the place cafe proprietor Steve presents Perez along with her first guitar, now repaired after years of damage. “This can be a reward that was given to me by a household good friend,” she explains. “I wrote plenty of songs on it. I’m so comfortable that I get to play this guitar once more.”
JP Evangelista, SVP of Content material, Programming and Advertising and marketing at Vevo, praises the singer’s authenticity: “With a sound that’s daring but susceptible, storytelling that’s deeply genuine, and a stage presence that’s merely unmatched, she completely embodies the following technology of artists that Vevo at all times likes to champion.”
Perez’s 2025 breakthrough adopted years of obstacles and setbacks. “I feel the primary few years of placing music out underneath my artist identify, there have been plenty of fixed roadblocks,” she admits. “Like, each single day, there was a door that you just opened, and behind it was like a bit of fist that punched you within the face. However this yr, it was completely different.”
The self-produced debut album On the Seaside, In Each Life, launched in April 2025, explores themes of grief, love, religion and sexuality. Her breakout single “Sailor Track” helped propel her into the mainstream, resulting in help slots with Hozier and an look on The Tonight Present Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Again to the Seaside serves as each a celebration of how far Perez has come and a reminder of the foundations that formed her artistry.
For an artist who now instructions competition levels and sells out headline reveals, the return to Village Music Cafe looks like coming full circle.
