WHO I AM
I am RIONA, a Deaf hip hop artist, songwriter, and visual performer from Berlin, Germany.
Behind RIONA is Fiona Taebel, born and raised in Berlin. I come from a Deaf family. My parents and my sister are also Deaf. My brother is hearing and, as a child of Deaf parents, a CODA.
Sign language, visual communication, and Deaf culture are not only part of my art. They are part of my life and my identity.
I redefine hip hop beyond sound through sign language, movement, performance, and cinematic storytelling. My music brings together hip hop with elements of R&B and pop and becomes part of a visual world that can be seen, felt, and experienced.
For me, music is more than sound.
It is emotion. Rhythm. Energy. Movement. Human connection.
I experience music in my own way through vibration, observation, movement, structure, emotion, and energy. And I give it my own expression.
Through my hands. My eyes. My facial expressions. My lips. My body. My movement. My presence.
My hands are part of my voice.
My face is part of my voice.
My body is part of my voice.
My presence is part of the music.
MY JOURNEy
My journey began long before I released my own music.
Since I was a child, I wanted to be on stage. Over the years, I performed within Deaf communities, at cultural events, festivals, theatre productions, and on stages across Germany.
For around five years, I developed my artistry through Deaf performance and interpreted the music of other artists. Beyoncé was a particularly important influence during this chapter of my artistic journey.
I did not simply learn how to perform songs. I learned how to transform rhythm into movement, how to make emotion visible, how to carry energy through my body, and how to give music a visual language.
Sign language, facial expression, dance, lip sync, body movement, character work, and storytelling became part of my own performance language.
On stage, I do not simply perform a song. I embody it.
Lip sync is also part of that embodiment for me. My lips, my hands, my face, and my body work together. I connect the vocal with sign language, facial expression, movement, and emotion, making the rhythm, feeling, and character of a song visually tangible.
I also move between different characters and personas. Each one carries their own energy, body language, emotions, attitude, and way of communicating.
Through these characters, I can express different sides of myself and different human experiences. Strength and vulnerability. Pain and confidence. Womanhood. Humour. Anger. Freedom. Transformation.
But eventually, I knew:
I did not want to tell other people’s stories forever.
After years of bringing other artists’ music to life, I wanted to write my own lyrics. Create my own music. Tell my own stories. Build my own world. And put my own name on the music.
That was the beginning of a new chapter.
UNMUTE
On September 12, 2026, I released UNMUTE, my first original single, together with my official music video.
UNMUTE is more than a song title to me. It represents the moment I step forward with my own music, my own story, and my own artistic identity.
After years of performing the music of others, my own musical story begins.
UNMUTE is the entrance into my UNMUTE World.
A world where music is not defined only by hearing. A world of hip hop, bass, vibration, sign language, movement, lip sync, characters, fashion, film, emotion, and visual storytelling.
A world where Deaf and hearing people can experience art in different ways and still be part of the same experience.
I spent years performing the music of others.
Now the stage belongs to my music.
Welcome to my UNMUTE World.
MY ART
My art explores Deaf identity, Deaf pride, visibility, empowerment, womanhood, communication barriers, social expectations, trauma, healing, resilience, and human connection.
But I do not want RIONA to exist within only one community. I want to bring different worlds together.
Deaf and hearing. Sound and silence. Music and movement. Hands and voices. Body and rhythm. Film and performance.
I want to challenge the idea that music belongs only to people who can hear it.
Art has never been limited to one sense.
Music can be heard. But it can also be seen. It can be felt. It can move through the body. It can live in movement. It can exist in hands, eyes, facial expression, and presence.
And it can connect people who experience it in completely different ways.
Everyone deserves the freedom to experience art in their own way.
TECHNOLOGY AS MY INSTRUMENT
As a Deaf artist, I use AI assisted vocal and music production tools as part of my creative process.
I do not hide that. But for me, technology is not the artist.
It is an instrument.
For me, the role of AI assisted vocal technology can also be understood through the idea of interpretation. A sign language interpreter can make spoken language accessible through sign language. In my creative process, vocal technology works in a way that moves in the other direction. It helps me bring my own written lyrics, musical ideas, emotions, and artistic direction into an audible vocal form.
The voice is a tool for expression. The story, the words, the artistic decisions, and the performance come from me.
And when I perform my music, I bring that vocal back into my own visual language through sign language, lip sync, facial expression, movement, and my body.
Everything begins with my lyrics, my ideas, my emotions, my stories, and my artistic direction.
AI assisted tools help me explore vocals, instrumentals, and different musical possibilities and help me bring my ideas into an audible form.
But not every version becomes my song.
I decide. I reject. I change. I try again. I collect feedback. I reshape the work.
And I continue until the result connects with what I wrote, what I feel, and what I want to express.
For me, technology creates access to musical forms of expression that I can use in my own way.
It supports my creative process. It does not replace my identity, my lyrics, my decisions, my performance, or my vision.
Technology supports my vision. It does not define the artist.
MY CREATIVE PROCESS
Every project begins with me.
I write my own lyrics, develop my own concepts, create my visual ideas, shape my performances, and lead the creative direction of my work.
A song does not come together in a single step for me.
I write. I experiment. I feel rhythm and energy in my own way. I observe. I test. I change things. I collect feedback. I go back. And sometimes I begin again.
Many different versions can take shape before I find the flow, emotion, energy, and character that truly belong to the song.
I also work with people I trust, sharing my work with them and receiving feedback. I consider that feedback, make my own decisions, and continue developing the song until I reach that moment:
This is it. This feels like RIONA.
From there, the work continues through production, stems, mastering, performance, styling, camera work, editing, and visual development.
Because for me, a song is never just an audio file.
Lyrics, music, vocals, sign language, lip sync, facial expression, movement, styling, characters, camera work, and storytelling belong together.
Together, they become one complete artistic work.
UNMUTE RECORDS
With UNMUTE, UNMUTE Records also begins. It is the home of my music and my creative vision.
UNMUTE Records begins with my own journey as an independent artist. But to me, the name carries a bigger idea.
UNMUTE stands for expression. For visibility. For people and forms of expression that do not always fit traditional ideas within the music industry.
I want UNMUTE Records to grow alongside my art and, over time, become a space where music, songwriting, visual art, performance, accessibility, and different forms of communication and musical experience can come together.
A space where new ways of creating are not considered less artistic simply because they are different.
UNMUTE begins with my story. But the idea behind it is bigger than me.
This is only the beginning.
MY VISION
I do not want to simply release songs.
I want to create a world.
A world where music and visuals are not separated. Where a music video is not simply an extra for a song, but part of its story. Where sign language is not added to a finished work afterwards, but can live within the artistic language from the very beginning.
I want to create projects where music, film, fashion, movement, sign language, lip sync, performance, characters, accessibility, and storytelling come together as one.
I want to step onto bigger stages. Develop my own live shows. Collaborate with artists from different worlds. Go on tour. Create films and music videos. And continue expanding the UNMUTE World.
At the same time, I want to see an arts and music landscape where Deaf artists have space, recognition, opportunities, and creative freedom.
A world where accessibility is not something added at the end.
And a world where new technologies can also be understood as tools for artistic expression and access, without making the person and the creative work behind them invisible.
My goal is not to prove that a Deaf person can make music.
My goal is to make my art.
To build something that carries my artistic signature.
And through my work, to open another door to what music, voice, and artistic expression can be.
MY VOICE
For me, voice is not limited to sound.
It exists in my hands.
It exists in my eyes.
It exists in my lips.
It exists in my movement.
It exists in my body.
It exists in my emotions.
It exists in my presence.
You do not have to hear my voice to experience it.
I am RIONA.
Welcome to my UNMUTE World.
Copyright and Artistic Authorship
All original lyrics, concepts, visual direction, performances, storytelling, branding, and creative direction are created and developed by RIONA.
RIONA remains the creative force behind each project, shaping the artistic vision from the first idea and written lyrics through musical development, visual storytelling, performance, and final creative decisions.
AI assisted tools are part of the music production process and are used to help translate RIONA’s written lyrics, musical ideas, emotions, and creative direction into audible musical forms.
The use of technology does not replace RIONA’s role as songwriter, performer, creative director, or the creator of her original artistic contributions.
AI TRANSPARENCY
Transparency is part of my artistic practice.
My lyrics, concepts, artistic vision, visual direction, performance, and creative decisions are created and directed by me.
Generative AI assisted tools are used within my music production process to develop and explore vocals, instrumentals, musical arrangements, and different versions of a song. I review, select, reject, revise, and continue developing these results until they reflect the artistic direction I want to express.
For UNMUTE, generative AI assisted tools were used as part of the musical production process.
The official UNMUTE music video was created through real world production and performance. It was filmed, performed, directed, and edited without generative AI.
AI is part of my process. It is not my identity.
The technology supports the vision. The artist behind that vision is RIONA.