Hurray for the Riff Raff originated as the creative vehicle for Alynda Segarra, a Puerto Rican-descended singer and songwriter whose initial exposure to music came through hardcore punk during a Bronx childhood. Segarra subsequently shifted focus to American roots traditions and established residence in New Orleans near 2007, where the project’s earliest lineup took shape. Across multiple independent recordings the artist refined a distinctive approach that blended various folk strands, anchored by protest material yet infused with anthemic punk energy and polyrhythmic textures, ultimately yielding the expansive, personal brand of Americana showcased on the 2014 ATO debut Small Town Heroes and brought to maturity with 2017’s The Navigator. Horizons broadened further on Life on Earth in 2022, where contemporary concerns were addressed through expansive sonic landscapes built from retro keyboard textures—an approach carried into the 2024 release The Past Is Still Alive, which turned toward Segarra’s personal backstory.
The Navigator’s spring 2017 arrival marked a full decade of activity under the Hurray for the Riff Raff name. After growing up amid New York punk and alternative folk scenes, Segarra departed home at seventeen, rode freight trains across the country, and eventually reached New Orleans. Street performances followed, leading to involvement with the Dead Man Street Orchestra around 2007. Segarra soon departed that ensemble and issued the EP Crossing the Rubicon the same year; like the subsequent 2008 self-released album It Don’t Mean I Don’t Love You, it appeared under the Hurray for the Riff Raff banner and featured bassist David Maclay alongside drummer/violinist Yosi Pearlstein. Those collaborators departed rapidly, leaving Segarra as the project’s clear focal point by the time of the self-released 2010 album Young Blood Blues.
Selections from the initial pair of independent releases were assembled for the 2011 album Hurray for the Riff Raff, issued on Loose Music that spring. Momentum built through BBC Radio airplay and coverage in The Times. Look Out Mama, the third album, was crowdfunded via Kickstarter, produced by Andrija Tokic, and surfaced in 2012—Loose handled European distribution while Born to Win managed the U.S. version—followed in 2013 by the covers collection My Dearest Darkest Neighbor. This body of work attracted major-label interest, resulting in a signing with ATO. Small Town Heroes, the first release under that deal, arrived in 2014 to favorable notices and sustained grassroots support over the ensuing two years. Segarra moved to Nashville during this period and enlarged the project’s scope with The Navigator, a quasi-autobiographical concept album partially modeled on David Bowie’s The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars; its March 2017 release earned widespread critical acclaim.
Life on Earth appeared in February 2022, produced by Brad Cook—recognized for prior work with Bon Iver and Waxahatchee—and drew thematic impetus from Adrienne Maree Brown’s writings alongside music by the Clash and Bad Bunny. February 2024 brought The Past Is Still Alive, an album that examined both Segarra’s individual past and broader threads of American cultural memory.
