2023-08-04 07:55:54
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Caption,
C. Tangana’s first steps in music were in 2006 as part of the rap band Agorazein.
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The Spanish Antón Álvarez Alfaro, better known as C. Tangana, confesses that he has an obsession: he wants his compositions to transcend and be remembered as part of the popular culture of his land.
As it happens with some flamenco coplas, he wants his songs to be sung by the public without necessarily knowing who the author was. That his music “belongs to everyone”, says the 32-year-old from Madrid.
And to achieve this, adds the urban music artist in an interview with BBC Mundo, he tries to break with the molds of the mainstream market. He tries to “look for something more”, compose “deeper” and get away from empty music that “in six months is forgotten”.
The task began in 2006, when he responded to the pseudonym Crema and was part of the hip hop group Agorazein, which stood out on the independent festival scene in Spain.
But like C. Tangana, a name he began using in 2011, this Latin Grammy winner showed his enormous power of transformation.
In his two studio albums, “Ídolo” (2017) and “El Madrileño” (2021), and in the smaller-scale productions he made in between, his music began to move beyond rap. He also ventured into reggaeton and pop, but with a different formula: he blends folk sounds from Spain and other places with modern rhythms.
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Caption,
C. Tangana, 32, began as a prominent rap artist and today is a renowned exponent of Spanish pop.
He also became a master of collaborations.
He obtained enormous international recognition thanks to the song “Antes de morirme” (2016), together with the singer Rosalía, with whom he was a partner and whom he helped compose several songs on his hit album “El mar querer” (2018).
And in his production “El Madrileño” (2021), which was applauded by critics and the public, the interpreter of hits such as “Los Tontos” and “Too many women” sings along with figures such as Jorge Drexler, Omara Portundo and Jose Feliciano.
This July, the rapper, as he calls himself, released the new anthem for Celta, the soccer team from the Spanish city of Vigo, where his father was born. The single is framed in the 100 years of the sports club.
Entitled Oliveira Dos Cen Anos (“100 Year Old Olive Tree”), it was released accompanied by a dramatic video packed with elements of the culture of Galicia, the region in northwest Spain where Vigo is located.
We talk about his intentions with music, his inspirations and his insistence on folklore in this interview.
When you compose an anthem you have to adhere to many expectations, such as those of the team or those of the fans. It is not merely composing a song for the sake of composing a song. How complex did this become for you?
It has been very complex. I usually do what I want. I don’t care much for the public and, in fact, I always like to annoy someone. Everything I do I try to make it a displacement. Tease purists or people who only listen to urban music and try to sneak something into them.
It’s the first time I wanted to please and I’m not used to being in that position. And in the end it has turned out very well because I have been able to develop ideas that I liked, but it has been a complicated process.
There is a lot of diplomacy within the clubs. You have to consider the fans, new and old, the people who are close to the players, who are rooted in the area of the club, who have interests in the city. It is a complex process. But in the end, for artists the easiest thing to do is to allude to direct emotions, to be “sensitive”, that always goes well.
Maybe the anthem is impregnated with your style. You did what you wanted in the end. But there is little of you in terms of presence. In the video you hardly see your image, the song does not have your voice and you give space to local groups such as the Casablanca Choir and the female vocal group of tambourines Lagharteiras.
image copyrightRocio Aguirre
Caption,
The artist directed the video for Celta’s anthem, entitled Oliveira Dos Cen Anos.
There are two things there. It’s an anthem, so the more of them the better. And then, I have an obsession with cultural transcendence that makes me not want to be just a performer or singer. And here I had an opportunity to be a real creator and do everything, for example think about the images, the composition, all this without taking advantage of the public figure that I am.
I like movies and I’m obsessed with it too.
For me, cultural significance happens when you get to popular culture, which is what worries me the most. To the extent that the author disappears, if the music and the work remain, it becomes popular culture.
In some types of music in Spain, especially flamenco music, but also in Galician folklore, no one knows who wrote many of the songs that are sung. He sings them all over the world, so they are from all over the world.
It is a hymn, a song in another language to celebrate a centenary. Everything indicated to me that if I didn’t sing, the work would level up.
image copyrightRocio Aguirre
Caption,
C. Tangana does not put her voice in the Celta anthem, which is sung in Galician, and gives space to local groups: the Casablanca Choir, the female vocal group of tambourines Lagharteiras and the Celta Tropas de Breogán rock.
We are almost a week away from the start of the women’s soccer world cup. The Spanish women’s team is one of the best in the world. Did you think when writing the anthem about how to make a space that has been occupied mostly by men for a long time more inclusive?
It arose naturally, because in Galicia the matriarchy is very strong. In families, women have always worked; They caught shellfish and worked the fields. They are women used to supporting the family and this is expressed in folklore. They are the ones who sing and play the percussion in Galician music. This was already part of the cultural trait that I wanted to rescue for my production.
They are voices that have a special bravery because the instruments they play are everyday objects, some of them farmed in the fields, and they play them with stones, with their hands. They have to sing very loudly, in unison, over the percussion instruments that have a very loud volume.
Regarding the athletes, I tried not to make direct allusions to soccer and to carry it more because of the emotions that sport generates and its feeling of community. In this sense of community there are boys, girls, children, older people, there are all kinds of people who are part of the community, which is what we want to represent.
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Caption,
The Spanish artist has collaborated with figures such as José Feliciano, Jorge Drexler and Andrés Calamaro.
You have said that urban music has several disguises that it is difficult to get out of. Is that why you insist on the inclusion of Spanish folklore in your music? Perhaps to break with those paradigms?
I feel part of the urban genre. Yes it is true that as an artist I managed to transcend that, but I started rapping. I still consider myself a rapper who tries to investigate elsewhere.
I do believe that right now music in Spanish and the urban genre have an opportunity to transcend and produce culture that lasts longer and reaches deeper.
If we think about hip hip and how hip hop transformed global culture, well, reggaeton is like the son of hip hop and I think that in the same way Latin music, or music made in our language, has very strong opportunities. to make changes and impact the world.
When you talk about culture, it seems like you’re talking about business. I don’t see anything cultural in songs that nobody remembers after six months or a year. I think that songs or music with less mainstream impact, but with more depth, are the ones that now have the most value.
There are many people who are in that search. There is another that does not and that wants to repeat a formula, and they are in their full right and it is good to compete on a commercial level, because that opens doors for the rest of us. But I think it’s time to make an impact with Spanish now that the whole world is listening to it. Soon it will be an Asian language and they will have their chance, now it is our turn, now that they listen to us we need something worthwhile.
image copyrightRocio Aguirre
Caption,
C. Tangana in one of the few appearances he makes in the video for the song Oliveira Dos Cen Anos.
What Latin American rhythms, landscapes or artists inspire you?
The entire album “El Madrileño” is imbued with the trips I’ve made to Latin America. I am not exposed to the contemporary environment of what is happening in the urban. I can tell you that I am very interested in the Chilean reggaeton scene, which seems to me to have returned to the origin of the hardest Boricua reggaeton.
I really like the transformations that Argentine cumbia has undergone, which has now been mixed with reggaeton, RKT, everything that has to do with modern cumbia or more urban cumbia, more “reggaetonized”.
But above all I like traditional music. I am a fan of the Cuban son, which is the origin of salsa, I am a fan of the more traditional bachata, the one from before the electric guitar, which was joined to the bolero, with bongos and nylon guitar.
What do you look for when you bridge generations and collaborate with song stars who may be outside of what is mainstream today? Like, for example, the Gypsy Kings, Calamaro, Drexler, Toquinho, José Feliciano…
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Caption,
For C. Tangana, the artist must find a way for his music to transcend popular culture.
Well, precisely in that type of collaborations that are of very consecrated people what I have sought is to learn.
Get together with teachers and try to learn. I’ve tried to do a lot of studio sessions with them. I remember that when we recorded with Eliades Ochoa, we went to Cuba to record with him. with omara [Portuondo], we went to the studio to sing with her, to learn from her and listen to what she had to say about the compositions. with George [Drexler] I’ve been in the studio, with Andrés [Calamaro] I’ve been in the studio…
They are for me great teachers and referents of popular culture, which is the highest culture of all.
Who do you need to collaborate with?
We have an editor who wonders when you collaborate with Bizarrap…
Man! With Biza I have been in the studio, we have never finished any song, but we have started some. With Biza it would be fine, I also like Featherweight. I like the corrido tumbao in general. I love Nathanael, I also like Armed Link.
I am very in contact with Mexican music because I have many friends there, because I have many fans. But yes, I also like Tokischa, I also like Villano Antillano.
image copyrightGetty Images
Caption,
The artist affirms that he seeks to “learn” from the people with whom he collaborates in music, and for this reason he has works with personalities such as José Feliciano or Jorge Drexler.
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