Cyrilia Lopez wakes up in her home in South Korea, has breakfast

, then walks a few steps to her in-house recording space, where she records videos, writes songs and works on marketing her brand.

She divides her time between her husband and son and her music career.

As an independent recording artiste, much of the work that would typically go to a team at a record company, she does herself. She charts her own musical direction and makes all the decisions necessary as she pursues a music career.

It allows her an artistic freedom that she is leaning into after having a "eureka" moment because of the covid19 pandemic.

“When covid just started. they made it seem like it was lethal and everyone was like, ‘Don’t go outside. you would get covid and die.’ I was shopping with my hand sanitiser.

"I thought, what if I die, what legacy am I leaving behind? What would I leave behind? I said, 'Listen, if you die tomorrow, this is the song you are working on right now – are you happy with that?'”

So, after dabbling with the very popular Korean music genre of kpop, she decided to go back to the music she felt most comfortable with – music with soul which tells stories that allow her to share herself with the world.

Her stories are as much about love as they are about trauma, as she uses her words to weave her own personal pain and hope with soothing melodies.

Her latest single So Empty, released on all major streaming platforms is one such song, written for her mother, with whom she has a difficult relationship.

She spent her childhood in South Trinidad living with different families, sometimes staying with her mother, an experience she described as traumatising. During her childhood, she says, she was also sexually abused,

“I never knew my dad, and my mom has not been there for me.

"My mother was the only parent I knew. When I was with her I felt like I was the adult. At eight years old, I was learning to cook lentil peas or wash clothes in the river on rocks, cleaning up the house, going to the chapel to get free food. I felt more like an adult than a child.

"I just did not have a relationship with her as a child. and then later, in my late teens, I moved in with her and I felt like that connection was more (like) friends and I never had the mother-daughter relationship.

"After I left Trinidad to go abroad I felt I was being manipulated; I felt like she was using the hard times I know she would experience to get finances out of me and I have stopped talking to her.”

[caption id="attachment_894907" align="alignnone" width="575"] 'I made the decision to just be 100 per cent authentic with my music and not make commercial music just for getting ahead,' says Cyrilia. Photo courtesy Cyrilia Lopez -[/caption]

In the song, she shares her feelings on the emotional distance between her and her mother.

“When it says, 'Do you ever think about the times we never met when I needed you and you were not there,’ I was talking about living in my aunt and uncle’s house. and they treated their children differently