LaToya Chambliss writes and directs the music of Toriella, releasing it through her own label, TORIELLA MUSIC GROUP. We first featured her album in New on EV: Toriella, ‘WHAT’S UNDERSTOOD AIN’T GOTTA BE EXPLAINED’. The record is rooted in ’90s quiet storm and built around the grown love story of Toriella and Sanchez.
We sat down with her to talk about what St. Louis and New York each gave the album, and about rewriting the title track’s hook until it stopped over-explaining. She also discusses her openly hybrid AI vocals, trained on her own voice, and the work of carrying a release independently.
EV: What did the phrase WHAT'S UNDERSTOOD AIN'T GOTTA BE EXPLAINED mean to you when you started making the album, and did its meaning change by the time you finished?
Toriella: When I started, that phrase was about a relationship — that place where two people are so locked in that they don't have to explain themselves to each other, and they sure don't have to explain it to anybody else. Real love doesn't need a press release. By the time I finished the album, it had grown bigger than one love story. It became about me as an artist too. I don't have to explain Toriella. I don't have to explain how I make my music, why I move the way I move, or why a grown woman is building this on her own terms. If you get it, you get it — and the people who get it are exactly who this album was made for.
EV: Where do you hear St. Louis in your songwriting, and what has making music in New York brought out in you?
Toriella: St. Louis is the soul of it. The plain-spoken way I write, the storytelling, saying exactly what I mean with no extra fluff — that's home. St. Louis taught me real talk and real feeling, and you can hear that in how Toriella talks to Sanchez in these songs. It's honest. It's grown. New York brought out the boss in me. New York will make you sharpen up — the pace, the ambition, the luxury, the "stand on business" energy. So the album is both cities: St. Louis gave it the heart, New York gave it the edge. I'm not choosing between them; I carry both everywhere I go.
EV: You've described your sound as rooted in '90s quiet storm. What did you learn from that era about writing for an intimate late-night listen, and how did you make that sound your own?
Toriella: That era taught me patience. '90s quiet storm records didn't rush anything — they set a mood, they let a record breathe, and every line was written like a conversation at 2 in the morning. I learned that intimate doesn't mean weak. The softest record in the world can still be the most confident one in the room. I made it my own by writing from a grown woman's life right now — not young love, not guessing. Toriella knows who she is, knows what she wants, and knows her worth. Then I put that voice over a modern low end, so it feels like the records we grew up on but sounds like today.
EV: Which song on the album took the most rewriting? Can you walk us through a lyric, melody or arrangement choice you changed and why?
Toriella: The title track. That one had to be PERFECT because the whole album stands on it. I rewrote the hook more times than I can count. At first it explained too much — which went against the whole title of the song, so I kept cutting lines until the hook just stated it plain and let it sit there: what's understood ain't gotta be explained. No proving, no pleading. I also fought with the arrangement: I wanted the verses close and conversational, almost like she's talking straight to him, and then let the song open up when the feeling gets bigger. Once I stopped over-explaining in the song about not explaining, it clicked.
EV: You've been open about using hybrid AI assistance on the title track. How did you write and build that track, and which creative decisions mattered most to you?
Toriella: I've never hidden it: Toriella's vocals are hybrid AI — the AI was trained on my voice, and I direct it like I would direct any singer in the booth. The song starts with me. I write the story, the lyrics, the emotion, the woman — Toriella and Sanchez's whole world comes from my life and my pen. Then I build the track with AI tools, take after take, shaping the phrasing, the breath, the attitude, until it sounds like exactly what I heard in my head. The decisions that mattered most to me were the ones about feeling: where she whispers, where she stands firm, where she lets him know she's not going anywhere. The technology is the instrument. The taste, the story and the final say are mine.
EV: What has releasing through TORIELLA MUSIC GROUP let you do on your own terms, and what has been the hardest part of carrying a release independently?
Toriella: Everything. Releasing through my own label, TORIELLA MUSIC GROUP, means I pick the songs, the order, the look, the timing — and I own it. Nobody is sitting in a room telling a grown woman what a grown woman should sound like. I answer to the vision, period. The hardest part is that independent means the machine is YOU. There's no label department doing the pitching, the posting, the follow-ups — it's me, every day, knocking on doors and building this one listener at a time. It's more work, but I'll take the work over asking permission. What's understood ain't gotta be explained applies to the business too.
EV: After someone listens to the album, what would you point them to next, and why?
Toriella: Go straight to "Body Language." That's the other heartbeat of this album — the chemistry between Toriella and Sanchez in full effect, grown and confident, the kind of record you play when the words already did their job and the feeling takes over from there. And after that, stay with us — follow Toriella everywhere, because this story is still unfolding and there's more music coming. Stream the album here: https://sndo.ffm.to/p0mvjwn
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