Kayla Ramos - Hard to say goodbye

The following feature is now included in our online magazine which is also available in print.

Issue #5

Kayla Ramos sings heartbreak and performs it like a climactic event immersed in golden, hour light. Her debut release, "Hard to Say Goodbye," is a cinematic pop ballad which encapsulates the tender moment of holding on versus letting go, where every breath in feels like the edge of something soon to end. With heart-wrenching, emotive vocals and glistening contemporary production by Grammy-nominated producer and composer Dante Lattanzi (Caelum Music Production), the song bursts with raw emotion, telling instantly to those who crave realism over glamour. A welcome addition to sentimental pop playlists, love songs anthologies, and cinematic vocal compilations, but better still, it brings us the artist who will never shy away from feeling it all. Grown up in San Jose and born in California, Ramos was brought up amidst a range of influences—classical recitals, church choirs, musical theater, hip, hop cyphers, jazz improvisational sessions, and early 2000s pop confessionals. She sang even before she could create words into sentences and was already writing songs on piano and guitar at 13, coalescing poetry, philosophy, and lived experience into sounds half-whispered like diary entries. Whether booking tables in neighborhood bars or headlining on stage in theater, Ramos cultivated a voice that could swell with the grandeur of an orchestra one beat and shake with the intimate quiet of a whisper the next.

Her voice now resides in a space where vulnerability is resistance and nostalgia is an act of brash storytelling. Imagine the emotional honesty of Lana Del Rey, the self-searching fervor of Fiona Apple, the lyrical songcraft of Taylor Swift, and the vocal exactness of Ariana Grande, but Kayla is never imitative. Her voice is soft but determined, delicate but not fragile, a glass heart clutched hard in shaking hands. Collaborating with Dante Lattanzi, Ramos has hit the next art heights. "Hard to Say Goodbye" is a page turn, green, unsettling, affectively generous. It's not a debut that screams to be heard; it waits patiently, looping like an unreturned voicemail or the final sentence of a letter you were never supposed to write.Guiding Hard to Say Goodbye, you find yourself wondering if she writes cinematically,  chords ring placed instead of located, as if she is building affective shots. The production never tries too hard. Instead, it gives her voice room to feel human, slightly vulnerable at the edges. Lattanzi’s touch adds modern weight without drowning her sincerity. Fans of artists like Gracie Abrams or early Billie Eilish might recognize the intimacy, while lovers of Ariana Grande’s vocal control will clock Kayla’s quiet strength. But even with those touchpoints, she doesn’t echo anyone too closely. Her gentleness does not apologize. Her holdback is deliberate.