BeMyFiasco

Bianca Rodriguez records R&B material under the alias BeMyFiasco, yet her output steers clear of any suggestion of ruin that the moniker might imply. She frequently explores the more difficult sides of romance, but always frames those experiences with an underlying strength that leaves her recordings either uplifting or at least restorative. Standout projects are the Layers EP from 2016 and the 2021 debut album Where I Left You, the latter issued on Foreign Exchange Music with Phonte credited as executive producer.

Dallas-born and raised, Rodriguez absorbed music early through her mother and aunts, who sang together as a group, and through her paternal grandfather’s work as a Tejano vocalist. She first surfaced in 2013 on SoundCloud under her given name with the nine-track Solitude EP. Soon afterward she began using BeMyFiasco, a handle originally inspired by Lupe Fiasco on Twitter, and in 2016 she self-released Layers, her first EP offered commercially. The song “Monday Morning Blues” drew the notice of Phonte (of Little Brother and the Foreign Exchange), which led to an ongoing creative alliance. While continuing to issue singles through the rest of the decade—including a year spent living in Madrid—Rodriguez also appeared on several Phonte-related recordings, beginning with “Violets” from Robert Glasper’s Everything’s Beautiful and extending to “Beverly Hills” on Phonte’s solo Pacific Time EP, “All in a Day” from Little Brother’s May the Lord Watch, “Talkin’ to Myself” on Zo! and Tall Black Guy’s Abstractions, and “Let It Roll” fronted by IAMNOBODI. The last two tracks arrived as singles in 2021, just before the October release of Where I Left You. In addition to Phonte’s broad contributions, the album featured work from Zo!, Tall Black Guy, Carlitta Durand, Darien Brockington, Devin Morrison, and further producers, musicians, and vocalists.