A Chicago native, Marisol Velez—known professionally as Pinqy Ring—released her first album ( Herstory: The Lost Chapters ) in mid-May … with a little help from the City of Chicago. Make that, a lot of help from the city.
She won a grant from the City of Chicago to further pursue her music career.
"I'm very excited about," the 17-song album, said Velez, 29, who attended Lane Tech High School and then was an honors graduate from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is straight, dating and lives in Chicago's West Town neighborhood.
One of Pinqy Ring's most popular, and certainly most personal, songs is Little Hearts, which tells about her experience with childhood sexual abuse. She said it was "very important for me to put out there [the song about that subject] because I don't think that a lot of musicians talk about that very tough subject, or give people a song that they can listen to to help them feel better about what happened to them, so they know they are not a product of what happened."
The album also features a song titled Fifty Shades of Pinq, which she tagged as, "a fun spin on the Fifty Shades of Grey movie," she said.
Another new song from Pinqy Ring is Lipstick, which is "an empowering song," she said.
"It's a fun album," she said.
In 2013, following her first mixtape, A Beautiful Mess, Pinqy Ring released Herstory, an EP celebrating her story and touching on different aspects of women's narratives.
Pinqy Ring has performed in countless Chicago venues, as well as in St. Louis, San Francisco, New Orleans and even Ghana, West Africa.
"I didn't think I was going to get [the financial grant], so when I did, it made me feel validation for what I was going. For so long I was doubting myself and thought that maybe I shouldn't continue this passion, that it's not paying me [and instead] taking a lot of my money.
"The grant was … life-changing. It is what made this project a reality.
A proud Puerto Rican, Velez grew up admiring Metallica and 1990s hip-hop, "so I think a lot of my influences, you can hear come [in the] music I listen to and then how I write my lyrics."
Her overall style is very eclectic, she said.
She will be releasing new music videos every month, one per month, from June through September. "My music is very people-driven, so the songs that the people like the most are the ones that we are going to be pushing the most," and then offering videos for, she said.
So what's with the name—Pinqy Ring?
"I grew up as a tom-boy, though I hate that term," she said. "I hated the color pink because I associated it with being a girl and being girly." Then in high school one day, she he wore pink and was nicknamed, Pinky. "I hated it," she said.
But then her first manager said that Pinqy Ring was going to be her name.
Also while studying in Italy, she learned about the mafia-driven tradition of kissing a pinkie ring out of respect. And she sees that many rappers mention their pinkie rings.
"I just thought that Pinqy Ring is a very cool representation of who I am, of the fact that I shine my own shine. I changed the K to a Q just to make it more unique," she said.
Velez also was known as Pinqy Ring while teaching.
"I work toward helping people understand that, whoever they are as a person, should be celebrated and shared with the world, whether it be through their story, the work they do, or just by giving back. And I aim to do that with my music.
Velez has worked locally at homeless shelters and also is the first in her family to graduate from college.
