Briella Spent Years in a Strict Venezuelan Conservatory. Then She Found Her Voice in Reggaeton
The classically trained singer behind Tinikijima talks turning a conservatory education into reggaeton's loudest new voice.
Briella can still picture her conservatory professors reacting to what she does now. The Venezuelan singer and songwriter, born María Gabriela Otaiza in Valencia, spent years inside one of the country’s strictest classical music systems before turning toward a genre many of those same teachers still treat with suspicion. Five years and three projects later, that tension between formal training and street swagger has become the engine of her career.
How a TikTok Cover of Maluma Launched Briella’s Career
Briella built her earliest audience on TikTok, posting covers that layered her own verses over other artists’ hits. “If Maluma’s ‘Hawái’ came out, I’d show up and write a new verse and post the cover,” she said. The format caught the attention of fellow Latin star Natti Natasha, who ran a challenge called “Las Nenas,” inviting fans to write an original verse to one of her songs. Briella entered and finished among the competition’s five winners, taking home a $1,000 prize she still calls overwhelming for her at the time. That money became the budget for her first official music video, and with it came her debut single, “Otra Vez,” released in 2021.
Before Briella embarked on a solo project, she and her boyfriend, who is also her producer today, ran a small alternative pop duo that even placed songs in telenovelas, she said. “It was a very small, very alternative project,” she told FIERCE, calling it her training ground. “I learned to mix the vocals myself, and say, okay, I want this here, I want that there.” When she launched Briella as her own project in 2021, she pointed it squarely at reggaeton.
The Conservatory Training Behind Briella’s Reggaeton Sound
At 14, Briella began five years of classical piano training. At 16, she moved into music theory and harmony courses at the Carabobo Conservatory of Music while earning a degree in Music Education from the University of Carabobo, graduating Cum Laude in 2021 with the highest GPA in her faculty. She also met her boyfriend and current producer there, she said.
That formal training still shows up in every session, even on a reggaeton track. “All the knowledge we had from the conservatory was there. Okay, let’s start at this tempo, let’s do the switch here, let’s change it,” she said of producing with her boyfriend. But she said the genre gave her something the conservatory never did. “I studied music, I studied classical piano, I went through a conservatory that was extremely rigid, and I feel like reggaeton was what let me get out of that box,” she told FIERCE. Her early sound, she clarified, “wasn’t a nasty urbano, it was more like a pop urbano.” Still, she said, “that dirty touch gave me the flow I felt like I was missing.”
Inside Briella’s New EP Tinikijima, Out June 25
Briella’s new EP, Tinikijima, arrives June 25 as what her label describes as a soundtrack for summer, self-discovery, and emotional growth, exploring femininity, heartbreak, healing, friendship, and self-love through a sound rooted in Latin and tropical influences. The name comes from a real place. “Tinikijima is a beach in Choroní, the most spectacular beach my eyes have ever seen,” Briella said. The entire visual universe of the EP, every video and every shoot, was filmed there, she said. The word means “hidden place,” and she said it felt right the moment she heard it. “I felt like the name was calling to me,” she said.
Why Briella’s New Songs Are Making Conservative Men Uncomfortable
The EP’s tracklist leans into themes she calls deliberately provocative. The lead single, “Devuelve a Tu Marido” (“Return Your Husband”), builds on a simple joke. “Basically, if your husband comes factory-damaged, return him. That’s the concept of the first single,” she said. The track has already pulled in 67,000 YouTube views and 45,000 streams. Another track, “Dos Novios” (“Two Boyfriends”), runs with the premise of having two partners at once and has logged 16,000 YouTube views and 18,000 streams of its own, while the focus track, “Princeso,” takes aim at men she describes as acting entitled, building toward the line that a queen doesn’t go around with little princes.
Briella said the reaction has split along predictable lines. “Venezuela is a very conservative country, and obviously, there are comments from people who are hurt,” she said. She described two types of men responding to the project: some telling her they love what she is doing, and others getting offended by the subject matter, often without recognizing the humor beneath it, she said. “Honestly, I do feel quite free right now.”
What Briella Wants Listeners to Feel Years From Now
Briella said her priorities have shifted since her TikTok-cover days, when virality was the goal. “Now I want people to listen to this song one, two, three years from now and say, what a good song, it doesn’t sound old, the production still sounds current,” she said. “That’s what I wanted most with this EP, for the music to last, for it not to be something that lasts a month and disappears, but something that lasts for years.”
Briella’s Bogotá Media Tour and a First Hometown Concert in Caracas
Briella said she is heading to Bogotá for a media run that includes an acoustic performance at Cumbia House and presentations at local schools. Talks are also underway for her first official concert in Venezuela, in Caracas, though she said no date has been set. “It’s in the works,” she said.