We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Azalea (artist name: asália) Segura-Mora a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Azalea (artist name: asália), thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I have known for a long time that I wanted to pursue a music artist path. I feel like I soft-launched it in my head when I was in high school. I grew up being shy, but I loved singing so much and admired everyone who would put themselves out there online with their music talents. I would spend hours watching YouTube and Instagram creators such as Grent Perez, Chloe Moriondo, and UMI who would share music covers of songs I loved, then eventually released their own original music as indie artists to their online communities. Not knowing where else to start, I was excited to follow in their footsteps and started my YouTube Channel in 2018 (can be searched under asália). With each cover I released I felt like a mini-celeb! People from around the world would find my videos, connecting with my voice and interpretations of my favorite songs. I felt such joy to explore my vocal sound and work on my craft through music covers. The growing support I received made me feel like I could really do this music thing if I wanted to! Back then I would walk into my high school with a secret persona thinking, “people don’t know that I am becoming famous” – me with my 30 beloved subscribers at the time haha. Eventually with more confidence, I started being more vocal about my music to my community, challenged myself to perform live on my own and with bands, and eventually created original music from my bedroom with whatever resources I had available.

It has been such a journey since then. Along with my own passion for pursuing this music artist path, I am grateful to have also felt such encouragement and support from my community, family, and esteemed music organizations towards my music endeavors. I’ve been through a lot waves of self-doubt towards pursuing music but the support from my community feeds into my confidence of this route. They say you have to be your biggest supporter when it comes to being a music artist, and each day I work on affirming my vision to aim high in music. For me there are so many unknowns in creating a career as a professional music artist – this is uncharted territory for me and my family. I’ve learned to lean into building my support system in music, reaching out to those I admire and learning from their paths, and trying my best to help those who are entering this industry.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi everyone, thank you so much CanvasRebel for having me. I am so grateful to share my story with you all.

I am a Mexican-American, queer, creator who loves expressing myself through music by writing Spanish-English lyrics, singing, and playing the cello. Under my artist name, asália, I love pushing the boundaries of music styles and collaborating with others to create new fusion genres.

Growing up I was intrigued by music creation as I would play cello in the orchestras of my public school. After my school days I would explore creating tracks through GarageBand, entranced with layering my vocals over synth chords and tinny beats, and would spend hours learning how to play guitar through YouTube videos. In college I was grateful to study Computing in The Arts at UC San Diego, taking formal coursework in learning how to record, produce, mix music, and more. During this time, I also started alegrías, a latin/indie/jazz band composed of my UCSD friends that went on to be recognized through KCRW’s Young Creators Project (2022) and the NPR Tiny Desk Tour (2023)! Post college, I have been so inspired to continue creating music with a range of friends. I recently stepped onto an international platform in October 2025 with my bestie under the duet name, Asália y Norma, reaching the top finals in the Mexico Canta music competition sponsored by Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum. It brings me so much happiness to collaborate with my community to bring new art to the world, it’s something I can see myself doing well into my future.

In addition to putting my personal projects out, I enjoy working with others to bring their own music visions to life. I provide services across songwriting, session cello, session vocals, and audio mixing & editing. Further, I love performing live for shows and events! I would love to connect more if you would like to work with me, please reach out via email: azegura2020@gmail.com

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative for me is seeing the impact that my art brings to my community. As someone who feels very deeply, I pour so much into my music. I tap in to the depths of my mind, heart, emotions, and craft that energy into my art. For my community to resonate and feel that energy with me is the most impactful. It makes me feel like I can heal and unify.

Further to this point, I feel that artists have the power to bring hope and inspire movement. Hearing the news each day, I’ve been feeling the pain of our communities around the world as I am sure many of us do, from the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people to here in America with our immigrant community+ being terrorized by ICE. I have felt firsthand how art is resilience, resistance, and hope. As a music artist, I aim to uplift, unite, and stand up for my communities.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I feel like one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to unlearn, and that honestly am still unlearning, is that I must be perfect in my art and reach a certain level of skill in order to put my art out in the world. Which is not true! I have a high critique for my work and I overthink, but I am learning to be confident with my best at the moment. My work could always use improving, but I aim to accept that what I’ve made can already be fire and it adds to my history of work. With each track that I produce, content I post, song that I write, person I collaborate with, I improve each time. Sometimes the most important part is to put your music out there instead of sitting on a project that needs to be released. To release in the now could connect you to the right people regarding inspiration or collaboration.

I’ve learned that simplicity and genuineness can take you so far in music, which far outweighs “perfection”. I participated in a bi-national music competition, “Mexico Canta”, with my bestie Norma Rodriguez with a literal phone recording in my messy room. We advanced to the semi-finals, then finals of the competition out of 15k entries! Sometimes the most important thing at the moment is to put your work out there. You’d be surprised how far your message and feelings can travel with simplicity.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/asaliasm
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asalia.verse/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaleasm/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3E4f-ScXa9xHE3RMOaKCVg/videos
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/asalia_verse

Image Credits
Karen Karolina Avila, Ezekiel Rocha, Alejandro Segura-Mora