While every artist has been tasked with adjusting to the new landscape of COVID-19, few have done so as cheerfully as Karina Rykman. The Marco Benevento bassist and leader of her own eponymous band has put out two singles during the pandemic, as well as performed at numerous virtual festivals. On Monday, WABC-TV in New York aired a profile of Karina Rykman that detailed the artist’s highly-infectious positivity.
Though she was initially scheduled to be in a recording studio the first week of lockdown, she has still managed to stay busy. Her latest single—”Dirty South“—dropped earlier this month and marks her fourth overall. Her “quaranteam” band has recorded performances for the likes of Quarantine Comes Alive, Democracy Comes Alive, and more.
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“We’re all bogged down by so much these days,” she told the news outlet. “If I can, you know, just give people a little bit of relief with music, that’s an amazing thing.”
The profile also put a spotlight on Rykman’s thriving participation in an often male-dominated field. “It’s often, oftentimes, just me and a pack of men and a pack of boys,” she said. “And it’s been that way for quite some time.”
Though she was just starting to break out of the shadows these past couple years, Rykman has been performing professionally since the eighth grade. Her freshman year at NYU, she joined up with a band called Youth Posse. Since then, she has played with Marco Benevento, Phish during a soundcheck at Madison Square Garden, and as part of the backing band on America’s Got Talent. “I have an absolute, fundamental need to play that I felt from the first moment I picked up an acoustic guitar,” she said.
Along the way, she has also served as an inspiration to countless other young women. “I’ve had women come up to me after shows and say, ‘You being the truest version of yourself has inspired me to be the truest version of myself,'” she said.
To see the full report on Karina Rykman, head over to WABC-TV.