There is a certain freedom that comes with being willing to get messy.
For Olivia Prado, that idea sits at the heart of Dirty In The Sand, her new six-track EP exploring the excitement, vulnerability and emotional uncertainty that can come with opening yourself up to another person.
The title may immediately invite a more provocative interpretation, and Prado is clearly having some fun with that. But beneath the innuendo is something considerably more personal. Dirty In The Sand reaches back to the uninhibited freedom of childhood, when getting dirty simply meant playing, exploring and experiencing the world without worrying about the consequences.
Prado takes that same philosophy and brings it into adulthood.
“Dirty In The Sand isn’t just a cheeky innuendo, it’s about getting messy with life,” Prado explains. “Attraction, connection, doubt, heartbreak. Letting yourself fully experience it all.”
That willingness to experience the entire emotional spectrum gives the EP its shape.
Across Temptation, Up n Down, Turn Me On, Dirty In The Sand, Ocean and closing track Is It Enough, Prado moves through the different stages of attraction and intimacy. What begins with flirtation, curiosity and confidence gradually gives way to something more complicated.
The excitement starts carrying consequences. Confidence becomes uncertainty. Desire creates vulnerability.
Eventually, the question underneath it all becomes impossible to ignore: Am I enough?
It is a deceptively simple question, but also an intensely human one.
Rather than treating love as a clean progression toward happily ever after, Prado allows Dirty In The Sand to live inside the uncomfortable middle. This is where attraction and insecurity can exist simultaneously, where connection can feel exhilarating one moment and terrifying the next.
Sonically, Prado places those emotions inside a world informed by early-2000s pop nostalgia and contemporary R&B. The combination feels fitting for an artist whose music balances immediacy with introspection. There is room for sensuality and playfulness here, but also for the moments when the energy shifts inward.
One of the project’s early standouts, Up n Down, captures that balance particularly well. The track has also earned a spot on Davinci Magazine’s THE LISTEN, our Spotify playlist dedicated to the indie, alternative, pop, R&B, hip-hop and rap tracks currently on our radar. Its inclusion places Prado among the artists and releases our editorial team believes are worth pressing play on right now.
That duality is becoming an increasingly important part of Prado’s identity as an artist.
Raised in California’s Bay Area, Prado grew up surrounded by performance. Singing, dancing and musical theater gave her an early foundation, eventually leading her toward writing songs of her own.
The decision to pursue music fully, however, came through a much more transformative period of her life.
During college, Prado spent a year abroad in Sydney. Combined with the loss of her father, the experience reshaped her perspective and ultimately pushed her toward the career she had long imagined for herself.
Today, based in Los Angeles, she is building that career largely on her own terms.
And perhaps that makes the metaphor behind Dirty In The Sand even more appropriate.
As an independent artist, Prado has had to become more than the voice behind the songs. She has taken an active role in songwriting, creative direction, marketing, visuals and release strategy, learning firsthand that building an artistic career rarely happens without getting your hands dirty.
There is freedom in independence, but there is also responsibility.
Every release becomes more than music. It becomes a collection of decisions about how an artist wants to sound, look, communicate and ultimately be understood.
Prado has embraced that process rather than attempting to hide its imperfections.
Following her 2024 debut album, Liv Laugh Love, Dirty In The Sand feels like an artist moving deeper into her own emotional language. Instead of presenting vulnerability as something that arrives only after heartbreak, Prado recognizes that vulnerability begins much earlier.
It starts the moment you decide something matters.
That is what makes the progression of Dirty In The Sand compelling. The project does not separate desire from fear or confidence from insecurity. It recognizes them as interconnected parts of intimacy.
Sometimes getting closer to another person means confronting parts of yourself you would rather leave untouched.
Sometimes having fun means accepting that feelings may follow.
And sometimes the confidence to pursue what you want eventually leads to the much harder question of whether you believe you deserve it.
For Prado, there does not appear to be an easy answer. That may be the point.
Dirty In The Sand is less interested in cleaning up the emotional experience than documenting it. Through six tracks, Prado allows attraction to become connection, connection to become vulnerability, and vulnerability to expose the doubts hiding underneath.
It is playful until it isn’t.
It is confident until confidence begins to crack.
And somewhere between Temptation and Is It Enough, Olivia Prado makes the case that getting messy might simply be the price of genuinely feeling something.
Dirty In The Sand Track List
- Temptation
- Up n Down
- Turn Me On
- Dirty In The Sand
- Ocean
- Is It Enough
Olivia Prado’s Dirty In The Sand is available now on all major streaming platforms. Hear Up n Down now on Davinci Magazine’s THE LISTEN Spotify playlist.
