Renee Goust

Biography

Mexican-American neo-folklore singer-songwriter, producer and arranger Renee Goust (she/they), who grew up on the US/Mexico border, writes bilingual songs about gender equality, the LGBTQIA+ experience, immigration, and other social justice issues.

Renee’s artistic mission is to be a proud voice for the intersectional feminist, queer, gender non-conforming, and brown Latinx communities that are typically under-represented in the folk music traditions of the Americas. She has performed in Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Italy, France, and the US, appearing in renowned venues such as Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Museum and Mexico City’s El Cantoral. She has shared the stage with many Latin Grammy-winning (and nominated) artists.

Renee Goust has produced, composed, arranged, and performed original music for Chicanx-themed short films produced by Disney and WeTransfer. Her work has appeared on Tanya Saracho’s trailblazing TV series VIDA, which celebrates queer Chicanx identities in East Los Angeles. Renee has been featured on publications worldwide such as Spain’s El Pais, Argentina’s La República, and Mexico’s Reforma, to name just a few. Her songs “La Cumbia Feminazi” and “Querida Muerte (No Nos Maten)” have become well-known feminist anthems and are often heard in Women’s Day marches throughout Latin America and Spain.

Renee Goust was awarded the coveted NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts in March 2020. With their support, she composed, produced, and recorded her first full-length album “RESISTER”, a bilingual folk album by, for, and about women, women-identifying folks, and people of trans experience. “RESISTER” was made possible thanks to a team of 26 cis women, 2 trans women, and 2 persons of non-binary experience. The album was co-produced, recorded, edited and mixed by Grammy-nominated sound engineer Jeanne Montalvo, and mastered by Grammy-winning engineer Margaret Luthar.

Renee is natively fluent in English and Spanish. She spent some of the best summers of her life in Rome, Turin, and Paris. She is proficient in Italian and speaks basic French. Besides being a musician, Renee is also a classically trained cook. She worked as a sous chef in New York City from 2008 to 2018, headlining some of the city’s best Spanish restaurants including Michelin starred “La Vara” in Brooklyn. She is passionate about food & wine, women’s empowerment, racial equity and justice, the rights of LGBTQIA+ communities. Renee loves exchanging some of her youthful energy for time-acquired wisdom while spending time with the elderly. When not in the studio or on tour, you’ll find her reading poetry, cooking for friends, or traveling to spend quality time with her beloved 90-year-old grandmother, her abuelita Socorro.