Through the struggle, she’s had to learn some hard lessons - starting with her childhood in Miami Beach, Florida as Katriana Huguet – her given name. Growing up with six brothers and sisters, her parents went from having a successful, affluent business to scraping for rent money. “We were doing well for a while, but as I started getting older, little by little, it dwindled,” Kat recalls. “We were living in this huge house and then, you know...it was weird. You wake up one day and we’re crashing with my dad in his little two-bedroom apartment and there’s eight of us,” she explains. “My parents weren’t even together so I was like, ‘why are we even here’” “And we don’t even know where we’re going to be in the next two months because we have to get out of there to move to another space,” she continues. “It taught us to adjust, all of us to adjust. You learn to adjust with anything.” Her singing ability spawned from those adjustments, listening to legendary Cuban artists, like the Queen of Salsa, Célia Cruz, but also delving into rock’n’roll, reggae and pop. Her childhood imagination went from pen to paper as she began songwriting at age 15. “I was always reading and writing about my feelings and writing stories,” Kat explains. “When I got a little older, I started to put songs together. <strong>The</strong>n three, four years ago, I started recording.” Her move to New York came at 18, after she realized that music was an attainable pursuit. But a turbulent relationship derailed her, and she toiled through a period of heavy depression. She eventually broke free, but not without some emotional scarring, and a collection of songs, like the dark, abrasive confessional, “Gangsta.” As the track took hold of radio and YouTube (almost 1 million views, two weeks after the single dropped), people rocked with her telling, personal narrative and the name “Kat Dahlia,” christened by producer and friend, J. Dens, arose. Her lessons of survival and adaptability in the commotion of everyday life - that for some, can dampen the soul - for Kat, extracted strength and humor. “I feel, like, constipated; artistically constipated,” she admitted when we discussed “My Garden,” back in November. “I’ve had this baby in me [referring to her album] – 24 months pregnant – and it’s just gotten so big and fat. And oh my God, I’m a terrible mother,” she jokes. Her personality is often a mix of sarcasm and optimism, but the layers of vulnerability aren’t fully present until you hear her music. “You shut your light, you left me blind/ But I could never turn away/ Whether you’re black, whether you’re white / You always left me in the gray,” she <strong>POTENT</strong> Magazine | THIRTY-THREE
“ If I can make music that actually affects people and affect the way that they think, and changes things for them – that’s the moving shit. “
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