"Being a woman has cost me more than the weight of my surname"

His latest album, Gotas, is drawn as a retrospective compilation of his most prominent repertoire. Could it be said that he gathers the drops that, together, form the pool of his best songs?

The truth is that Gotas is born from a process of recovering my songs, although I have never left them, but it is a return to those own songs that have evolved over time. It's actually an EP, but one that, when I perform on a show, lasts much longer. I am very happy with the result and the reception, because it is an album that has received a lot of awards, for example, by the More Music platform, which distinguished it as Best Jazz Recording of the Year. We have also toured it a lot around the peninsula and I am very excited to finally be able to take it to Gran Canaria.

Therefore, has the creative process involved a return to the origin, but under the prism of the artist that she is today?

That's how it is. This album is a revisitation that was born from the impulse to take up some of my old songs, which I have always sung live throughout my life, but which have evolved a lot from those beginnings until now. In that sense, it seemed nice to me to review my compositions and bring them to the present to reinterpret them from my current vocal and sound evolution as an artist.

Regarding the selection process, have you chosen the songs that sound best in your voice or, on the contrary, did the songs choose you?

Well, I would say that it was rather the latter. In reality, what we set out to do was recover those songs that we have performed the most live in recent years, because they were not only the songs that we had most present, but those that best reflected that evolution and transformation of our sound.

"The vocal instrument is very complicated because it is not external, but is inside you"

His sound palette interweaves different genres such as jazz, blues and soul, but he has also traveled other territories, such as electronic music or acoustic formats. Have you always conceived of music as a crossroads?

It is that I have never believed anything, as an artist, in the possibility of ascribing to a single musical genre. I even consider that, today, and for a long time, music is above all a crossroads, because we have so many influences that everything is mixed. If it is impossible for a person to like only one genre, it is even more unimaginable for a musician. Above all, when one considers his career in music from an independent point of view and not as a mainstream artist, the normal thing is that you go through all those sound fields and that you discover new languages ​​that you incorporate into your repertoire to shape a sound of its own.

What has been your most experimental musical stage?

After my beginnings in pop, I entered electronic music in the 90s with the group Wax Beat, with Juan Belda and Daniel Assante, but, before that, I had already lived an absolutely experimental stage in the drum and voice format. , in duet with Daniel. In general, I have always moved between different parameters, because the same musical tastes evolve from the beginning, so my journey as an artist has gone through different stages and genres that are part of the way.

I suppose that not subscribing to any genre or current has given her many freedoms, but also obstacles when it comes to framing her within a style.

And this is something that has always been strange to me because, deep down, almost no artist can be framed anywhere. I think that, except for cases like pure pop or reggaeton, musicians tend to move in a very wide spectrum, like any artist from other disciplines, because we travel through different landscapes, even if you stay in some for longer afterwards.

And what is that landscape, if any?

I suppose that the landscape through which I have traveled the most has been black music. Between jazz, soul and blues, as well as my own songs, I think all my music is rooted there, even if it's in Spanish. Obviously, the accent is on my facet as a vocalist, who has his own stamp that surrounds all this.

He has always associated his condition as a vocalist with that of an instrumentalist, in the sense that the voice is the instrument that he tunes and interprets. Does this approach entail more demands from the point of view of vocal technique?

Of course, it is that I believe that singing well is very complicated and that, for example, it is easier for a guitarist to obtain a higher level of mastery at 30 years of age than a 30-year-old singer. The vocal instrument is very complicated because it involves so many things. It is not an external object that you grasp, but it is an instrument that is within you. And that requires that you develop a technique that allows you to have a longevity in the years. Then, many other things influence, such as the genres that you choose or that you can travel until you manage to develop your voice well, as well as the work of keeping it on time and preserving it, in addition to all the emotional part. It is much more difficult for me to have a master's degree as a singer than as a musician of any other instrument, because it takes much longer.

She has often been dubbed 'the Spanish Aretha Franklin. Is the lady of soul in your vocal or musical references?

Certainly, although I have had several. In the end, we all look for references but, as artists, more. In my case, Aretha Franklin has always been one of the first. But in my most rock era it was Janis Joplin, who I have always loved, because the truth is that my references and influences are many and varied, since I myself am very eclectic in music.

His career has been based on the search for his own musical identity; unmarked from the family name, as far as possible, and constructed from his own intuition. Is it difficult to follow an independent path in this industry, especially as a woman?

Without a doubt, I will tell you that it has cost me more because of the fact of being a woman than because of the weight of the surname. I started in this industry when I was very young because, when I signed my first contract with Zafiro, a Spanish multinational that no longer exists, I was 18 or 19 years old. So, at that time, I was faced with a world completely dominated by men, from musicians to producers, where finding a place for yourself was very difficult because you were always treated in a different way, almost as a product. Therefore, it has been a difficult road to be able to have a career of my own and, if I look back, it gives a certain vertigo, but above all, I am very satisfied because I have been able to do my career as I have wanted and that is a luxury. And with regard to the surname, obviously, when you start a career it marks you a lot, as in any other profession, but, as you make your way, that is no longer decisive for others. For me, of course, not only has the fact of being the daughter of my father and having been trained in music with him been decisive, but, above all, I am very proud of it because that has made me configure myself of a certain way as an artist and now be who I am.

«I have never believed anything, as an artist, in the possibility of ascribing to a single musical genre»

In what moment are you as an artist?

Right now I am experiencing a moment of explosion after the implosion (laughs), because I have not stopped giving concerts, doing collaborations and teaching vocal technique courses. At the moment I am with the Jazz Club Band, with a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, and in parallel, I continue with the Pioneras show, which pays tribute to the great divas of music and that we continue to move everywhere. The fact is that musicians always have to be involved in various things to be able to get ahead, so I keep moving.

Finally, next year he will release a new album, which is planned as a continuation of Gotas. What can advance on this project?

Yes, the idea is to release an album with new songs, but in the same line of sound as Gotas, with the force of the live show. The process will be slow, because we will go through the album single by single and, finally, we will make a compilation. And indeed, next 2022 I hope to be embarked on this new adventure. And in parallel, go ahead with all the others.