Photos by Raquel Riley Thomas Photography
With her song “Plot Twist” featured in the upcoming psychological thriller Watch It, the 19-year-old artist is quietly shaping the future of music and storytelling.
By the time Maria Raquel steps into the studio, she already knows what kind of day it will be.
Not because of superstition or ritual, but because she approaches music the same way she approaches everything else in her life, with precision, intention, and an awareness that every choice has consequences. Notes matter. Silence matters. Structure matters. So does instinct.
Photos by Raquel Riley Thomas Photography
At 19, when many artists are still experimenting with identity, Maria Raquel is already building something layered and deliberate. A musician shaped equally by melody and mathematics, she exists at the intersection of art and engineering, emotion and discipline. Her sound is not accidental. Neither is her trajectory.
Raised in a household where excellence was expected and creativity was encouraged, Maria grew up watching ambition in motion. Yet her path has never been about inheritance. It has been about authorship. She writes like someone who understands tension. She sings like someone who has studied restraint. And she listens like someone who knows that the most powerful moments in music are often the quietest.
Her songs do not rush to explain themselves. They unfold.
Photos by Raquel Riley Thomas Photography
That unfolding defines 1 AM, the album that introduced Maria Raquel not as a viral moment, but as a thinker. The project moves like a late-night reckoning, intimate, emotionally precise, and quietly self-assured.
From the psychological pull of “Bull’s-Eye” to the unflinching confidence of “I’m Better,” Maria’s catalog reads less like confession and more like construction.
“Plot Twist” is featured in the psychological thriller Watch It, premiering February 4, produced by Sis-to-Sis Productions and directed by Hazel Simpson, with Towanda Braxton as co-producer. Maria Raquel performs the song in a nightclub scene.
“I didn’t want a song that explained the scene,” Simpson says. “I wanted a song that understood it.”
Maria Raquel is currently majoring in aerospace engineering, a fact that initially surprises people until they hear her music. Then it makes perfect sense.
Rolling Stone: Your music feels very intentional. Do you ever allow yourself to write without a plan?
Photos by Raquel Riley Thomas Photography
Maria Raquel: I used to think I had to. Like real art had to be chaotic. But I’ve realized my honesty shows up in preparation. I think deeply before I write, so when I finally sit down, the emotion is already there. The plan doesn’t remove the feeling. It supports it.
Rolling Stone: Many of your songs explore becoming rather than arrival. Is that conscious?
Maria Raquel: Very. I don’t feel like I’ve arrived anywhere yet, and I don’t think most people have. I’m more interested in the in-between moments. The questions. The uncertainty. That’s where most people actually live.
Rolling Stone: You study aerospace engineering. Does that ever feel like a contradiction to being an artist?
Maria Raquel: No. It feels grounding. Engineering reminds me that imagination still needs structure to fly. Music reminds me that structure needs imagination to matter. They keep each other honest.
Photos by Raquel Riley Thomas Photography
Rolling Stone: Do you feel pressure to choose one path?
Maria Raquel: Not anymore. I did at first. But then I realized that choosing myself meant refusing to reduce my interests. I don’t think life is meant to be one note.
Rolling Stone: What do you want listeners to understand about you that they might miss at first glance?
Maria Raquel: That I’m listening as much as I’m speaking. I think people assume artists want to be seen all the time. Sometimes I’m just observing. That’s where the real work happens.
With Watch It premiering and new music underway, Maria Raquel is positioning herself not for a moment, but for longevity. She is not adapting to the future. She is already building it.
