Renée Gros is a singer and songwriter born, raised, and based in New Orleans. She started making a name in the city’s scene when legendary drummer Russell Batiste Jr. handpicked her to be the lead singer of his band; she spent her college years in Boston and two more singing on luxury cruise liners before the songs that became her debut EP, Temporary Love (2022), rose from those adventures at sea. Recorded at Neutral Sound Studio and produced by Andrew Block and Kevin Scott, the four-track EP combines vintage R&B energy with her own vulnerable storytelling, with Jon Cleary, Nigel Hall, and Ivan Neville lending their keyboard prowess. Its single ‘Shy Guy’ can be heard in A24’s Netflix series Survival of the Thickest. In October 2023 she sang in the house band backing Warren Haynes, Joe Bonamassa, Allen Stone, and George Porter Jr. at Tulane’s Tipping Point; her full-length Glad I’m Wrong followed in 2026.
Tiago Guy is a Brazilian-born singer-songwriter who made the big move to New Orleans in the spring of 2021 to pursue his passion for American roots music. Since then he has carved his way into the local scene — opening for Galactic and Jon Cleary & the Absolute Monster Gentlemen, and playing Tipitina’s, the Maple Leaf Bar, and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. His sophomore album Paper Thin (2024) combines smooth, soulful sounds with lyrics documenting a foreigner’s perspective on quintessentially New Orleans experiences — from riding out hurricanes to meeting his significant other’s family in Westwego — with Jon Cleary, Nigel Hall, John Fohl, and the Zion Harmonizers in the studio band, and support from a Jazz & Heritage Foundation grant.
As a duo, Renée Gros & Tiago Guy have become a fixture of the city’s club circuit — Chickie Wah Wah, the Maple Leaf, Tipitina’s — and made their New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival debut in the spring of 2024. Two voices, two journeys, one city: the new New Orleans soul, written in real time.
