Before that night, Prado had already been building momentum in a way that doesn’t follow any traditional path — ghostwriting for rappers on Twitter at 15, cutting her teeth in Vancouver’s DIY scene, and shaping a sound that pulls from rap, pop, and alternative without settling into any one lane. Her 2021 EPs Prado Monroe and Elastic introduced an artist rooted in her Afro-Indigenous identity and unafraid to centre queerness, body politics, and power in her work.

But Boiler Room was different. It wasn’t just a performance, it was a confirmation.

“I didn’t know any of them,” she says. “Thousands of people. I was scared. I lost my voice. I was like, ‘Oh, this is real. This is legit, this is the inertia people can’t buy, you can’t put a price on this energy!’”

That sense of arrival and the pressure that came with it lingered long after the set ended. Prado stepped away from the spotlight between 2022 and 2025, recalibrating both her sound and her sense of self before returning on her own terms.

With her latest single “SASHA,” she re-emerges with confidence and clarity. The track reframes heartbreak through a sultry, R&B-leaning pop lens, laced with cutting lines like “He’s a farmer / I’m the goat,” all aimed at what she’s described as a “blue-eyed demon.”

“‘SASHA’ is about the heartbreak I experienced early in my music career — being discarded by powerful, emotionally avoidant people and falling in love too easily,” she says. “As a naive young Afro-Indigenous artist, it hit me hard. It hurt, but it also helped me build a tough skin.”

What began as a collaboration with her sister Zuleyma evolved alongside her own understanding of those experiences. 

“The early demos were way more dark,” she explains. “But when I started writing about what actually happened in the industry, it became more real.”

The track marks more than just a return, it sets the tone for what comes next. Where earlier releases introduced Prado Monroe’s voice, this new run of singles feels more intentional in its scope, stretching across sonic and thematic territory without losing its centre.

On “UR,” she leans into a lush, layered anthem built around self-acceptance and refusing shame.

“I wanted to make a beautiful soundscape and an undeniable sound,” she says. “Like for Blood Orange or Solange to find it randomly and be like, ‘Dang, she did that?’”

Elsewhere, “ALI EXPRESS” turns a sharper eye toward culture itself — pulling from encounters with what she describes as “famous girls,” while unpacking the pressure to replicate aesthetics in an era driven by speed and sameness.

“We have to be more intentional with what we’re doing artistically [when it comes to where] the world is going towards,” she says. “I feel like a lot of [what I see] is like AliExpress.”

Referencing the fast-fashion marketplace known for knockoffs, she frames the track as both critique and affirmation.

“I wanted to say like, ‘bad girls do it again’ as a mantra to all the girlies out there. We’re always gonna do it no matter what. We’re always gonna keep up with the times. But, no bad energy on me in this AliExpress,” she laughs.

At its core, the song pushes back against a culture she sees as flattening individuality, one shaped by trend cycles and upheld by deeper systems of exclusion.

“We’re all wearing the same thing. We’re all trying to keep up with the same fashion the Charli xcx’s have perpetuated into the cultural zeitgeist,” she says. “It’s almost this level of fascism and white supremacy that’s upheld under these fashion pillars. So for me that song’s saying, ‘If I’m so trash, how you end up in my ends like that?’”

Still, Prado Monroe isn’t interested in staying in one lane — sonically or otherwise. Her upcoming material continues to expand her world, including a track that directly connects to her roots, “BTDT.”

“It’s my first trap song with a powwow sample that I’ve ever done,” she says of the track produced by Vancouver bass music producer Handsome Tiger. “It’s a powwow trap song.”

Out April 3, “BTDT,” along with the rest of her new material, is a natural extension of an artist who has always treated genre as something fluid. Prado sees her identity not as something to explain, but to amplify.

For her, the work goes beyond music. It’s about visibility, presence, and carving out space in an industry that hasn’t always made room for artists like her.

“Being told your art is important. People like me getting their art into places,” she says when asked about her purpose. “Having your fatness be a centre point of your life. I’m maybe one of the only fat bitches that’s not sheepish on the internet. I’m not a plus-size model. I’m not gonna dance around stuff. I’m the mission. This is the mission. Fat native, Black, Latino — I’m the mission. Getting educated, people like me having a real life and a real job, and being respected in the world. A lot of us are the mission.”