Angel Cintron Sang Through the Rage—At the Other End of it was Peace

The first time I heard Angel Cintron sing, I was just 14, watching her twirl on stage at a Texas music hall that’s so old, it seems to have been scrubbed from the internet. With her long hair effortlessly styled into a pair of space buns, glittery eye makeup, and a dimpled smile, at 17, she looked like a vision straight out of a teenage girl’s Pinterest board. Yet, her voice conveyed something more soulful and mature—even to an eighth grader who had to beg her parents to attend a “Teen Night” show on a Saturday afternoon.

That was a million Spotify streams, over 50,000 Instagram followers, and two full-length albums ago. Today, as I stare at the grinning 26-year-old singer-songwriter on the Zoom screen in front of me, it’s like being transported back in time. She’s excited about everything. She’s giddy when she realizes I have dimples, too. Her eyes light up when I tell her I’m from her hometown, San Antonio. “I’m even representing!” she shrieks, tugging at the neckline of her black graphic tee featuring an image of the Alamo. It’s hard to imagine this is the same Angel I saw at 14, now singing about angst and toxicity for a Gen Z fanbase that’s grown up alongside her.

Released this past October, Cintron’s recent second full-length album “5 Ever” is a 10-track reflection on her experiences with heartbreak, anger, and self-worth. Last year, she ended a tumultuous period in her life—one filled with heartbreak, a cross-country move, and a shift to becoming a newly independent artist. In closing that chapter, she finally felt comfortable with finishing the songs on “5 Ever,” which serves as a real-time record of her growth over the past five years. The album offers listeners a glimpse into the more self-actualized adult she’s become. Following its release, she launched a vocal coaching series where she helps children find confidence in their own voice and lyrics.

“I started [writing] a lot of these songs a long time ago, but I was like, ‘I can’t put these out. I’m very much still experiencing these things,’” she explains, sitting cross-legged in her Los Angeles bedroom. “Now, putting out the project feels like locking the door, closing it, and throwing away the key.”

Her favorite track, “Here Without You,” builds in intensity, blending elements of pop, R&B, and rock. “It’s called ‘5 Ever’ because I just kept elongating something that should have already been done,” she says, noting that her anger management skills, boundary-setting, and emotional expression are all drastically different than in her early 20s.

On “Mess,” for instance, she describes a yearning for attention from a partner she knows is a walking red flag. He rendezvous with other women, never shares photos of her on social media, and only shows interest in the relationship when it’s on the verge of falling apart. After picking up on the pattern, the Angel in the song opts for a different approach than walking away.

She pleads for her friends to take her phone away before she posts to an Instagram Close Friends list (with only him on it) to remind him of what he had. She describes it as “probably the most toxic song” on the album.

“I remember being in the studio and looking at Ari, my producer, and I was like, ‘Is this too much?’” she recalls, shaking her head. “And he was like, ‘This is the mindset that you were in at that moment.’ I said, ‘You’re right. This is the story.’” 

Cintron grew up a loner. Her dad, Danny Cintron—who works in construction and also has a voice like honey—first sparked her love for music, serving as the DJ for every family barbecue, birthday, and holiday celebration. Then, around age 12, she started playing violin. “The one thing that made me feel most at home was music,” she says.

She discovered her knack for creating music through her older brother, who goes by the alias Grumpy. Some of the first hooks she ever wrote were for his middle school rap group. She recalls sneaking down their garage stairs once to find her brother freestyling over instrumentals, using the beats to vent about his teenage struggles. “That was that moment I was like, ‘That’s where I got it from,’” she recalls. “Like, there’s no way that it’s not in my blood.”

While other students at Universal City’s Kitty Hawk Middle School were putting off homework on a school night, Cintron was falling asleep after cheer practices that ran until 9 p.m., only to wake up crying, ever the overachiever.

“I went to my mom, and she was like, ‘Girl, it is okay.’ But I was freaking out because I didn’t get this assignment done,” Cintron recalls, laughing at her younger emo self. “I swear I’m not a control freak, but I feel like if I don’t get my things done, it really bothers me.”

By that point, Cintron was singing karaoke versions of tunes by millennial pop stars like Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, and Kelly Clarkson while scribbling in her journal about her future plans of being a singer. And a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. And an Olympic gymnast.

Shedding her identity as a cheerleader was painful. Each hours-long practice, national competition, and intense team meeting laid the foundation of her character as an artist. It taught her discipline, shaped her performance skills, and imprinted on her a feeling that only grew stronger with each passing year: People depend on her. Although she’s a middle child among six siblings, Cintron has always felt like the eldest to her two younger sisters, aged 14 and 18. The societal standards she feels as a Latina, a woman, and the eldest child added pressure. As she reached the end of high school, she felt pressured to do the impossible: Choose one dream and go for it.

“I think in Latin culture, even though men are the heads of household, the home has to be led by the woman. The woman has to be strong,” she says. “When I graduated high school, I was like, ‘I have to make sure my life and everything I do is going to represent my family, and it’s going to create a path for them.’”

While working on her debut full-length album, 2019’s “Dream Catcher“ and “5 Ever,” Cintron learned how to reject other people’s opinions of her, while also channeling some of that rage into punk-rock songs like “F U” “Luv U,” and “Jus Like U.”

“As women, we are always getting told what people think we should do, how people think we should be, and what they think we should do with our careers, crafts, and talents,” she says. “I’ve been around that for so long that over time, I’m so sure about what I’m not willing to do and who I am that it does not affect me the same way.”

Along with performing at restaurants throughout San Antonio, Cintron went on to post videos of her covering everyone from Radiohead to Mariah Carey on YouTube, garnering the attention of over 200,000 viewers at age 19. Then, the pandemic hit. She found herself wondering, “What if the world is ending and I never went to L.A.?” Instead of wasting time letting doubt creep in, she spent the next 10 months saving up for the move and one month looking for an apartment before catching a plane to the West Coast. It took months for her to secure her first booking.

“It beat me up pretty bad,” she remembers. “Performing is my favorite part of being an artist. That’s where I feel at home. I thought, ‘I just might not be good enough here to book a show.’”

By her third year in L.A., she was headlining shows both around town and in San Antonio. Each performance felt like an audition. If the younger version of herself could peer into Cintron’s present-day reality, she wouldn’t believe what she’s accomplished.

“Like, no management, by myself, in L.A. with friends and people that I have met out here on this journey,” she says. “That alone was like, ‘Wow, we really did this.’ We made this piece of art, and now we’re playing it at shows, and people are listening to it. That alone is rewarding.”

Despite arriving fresh off one of multiple jobs, Cintron would often meet her album’s co-producer, Ari Carpenter, at their recording studio in Culver City, California, to lay tracks. There, Carpenter would strum random chords while Cintorn tried out verses aloud.

“The story would write itself,” Carpenter says, giggling at the casualness of it all. “The way I see music, in general, is there’s these floating ideas that are always in the air,” Cintron explains. “And a lot of times, what is meant for us to outpour or talk about is something we have to grasp.”

Carpenter adds, “When we first met, I thought she was this cool rock star girl. But then, as we got to know each other, you start to learn about who people are under the surface and what they’re going through. She just has a genuine spirit, like the bones of her body are positive. Whenever I spend time with her, I always leave feeling a bit happier.”

These days, Cintron has gotten better at giving herself grace. She’s strictly against forcing herself to create music. If she’s ever blocked off an entire day for any activity, that “activity” is to rest. Still, weekly to-do lists, planning, and calendars keep her sane. In between nannying, working with TikTok, leading at her church, and collaborating with other artists and producers, she finds it necessary to avoid creative burnout.

“It definitely has eased out, but I definitely still feel that, feeling of, ‘I got to get things done.’ It’s just this thing that I’ve had since I was very young where I feel like I don’t want to fail,” she says. “I’ve been writing in my diary since I was eight years old. I can’t throw any of them away—I have an attachment issue with my journals.”

Towards the end of “5 Ever,” Cintron foreshadows the possibility of being happier with the new changes in her life. The closing track, “Here Without You,” marks a full circle moment from the opener, “I Hate Your Room,” which Cintron describes as physical manifestation of what the album felt like—“A room of thoughts with uncertainty, unhealthiness, and toxicity,” she explains.

“Here Without You” introduces listeners to the next chapter in Cintron’s life, absent of a past partner and past vices. It leaves us on a cliffhanger of sorts. What happens next to the woman who lets herself lash out? While Cintron is in the process of writing the chapter—which she hopes to release before the end of this year—one spoiler she offers is the start of an era where she lets herself be happy.

“Music is something that I’m gonna do regardless if I’m doing it professionally or not,” Cintron says. “And so I need it to feed my soul. I need it to be real.”