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Chambao, flamenco chill group.
Interview
“I don’t
sing flamenco, but I carry it inside and it comes out naturally
in my music”
S.C. Madrid, November 2006
Chambao
closes an era. After universalizing the ‘flamenco chill’
label with three albums out on the market, the group’s
vocalist goes solo. La Mari sums up the group’s career
throughout the last six years on the occasion of the release
of the compilation ‘Caminando 2001-2006’. And
she weighs up more than positively the project which was born
“without any professional aspirations when sending a
demo to the record companies”. Thousands of records
sold, a jam-packed agenda of performances and the recognition
- live - of figures of the likes of Cesaria Évora and
Ricky Martin, endorse a special edition with a double CD and
DVD which, as an extra, includes a previously unreleased track:
the version of ‘Rosa María’ by Camarón,
an ever-present cantaor...
He really is. Chambao’s singer admits that the first
memory she has of ‘Rosa María’ by Camarón
is hearing her mother “singing it while she was cleaning”.
That’s why she doesn’t mind if she’s labeled
as daring: “That song’s mine, too. I didn’t
have to study the song or learn the lyrics; it’s always
been inside me”. The Málaga-born artist tells
that she comes “from a family of enthusiasts and I’ve
listened to pure flamenco a lot. Of the more modern stuff,
I listen to Triana, Pata
Negra, Mártires del Compás, Radio Tarifa,
Javier Ruibal, Enrique Morente, Arcángel... I don’t
know, a heck of a lot”. And all those references come
out naturally in her music.
And the truth is, as she explains, nothing in Chambao is
prefabricated. “Creating the label wasn’t something
mechanical; rather, it was a game. We’d get together
at a place and played at mixing the deep-roots stuff we had
with our generation’s technology. We realized we’d
coined a label when we saw the product; it wasn’t a
laboratory experiment. And it was right on”. The first
album, ‘Flamenco Chill’, came out in 2002. “I
listen to it even today and that’s what it is; a demo”.
But it was an overwhelming success in Spain. Two years later,
they recorded ‘Endorfinas en la mente’, and then
in 2005, ‘Pokito a poko’ was released. La Mari,
looking back, points out that “we’ve grown musically;
changing producers gave us more quality and maturity”.
But there isn’t just a musical project in Chambao’s
proposal, but also a harsh life experience. Right with the
group in full bloom, La Mari had to confront breast cancer.
That’s why the messages their lyrics send out take on
more meaning. “The lyrics talk a little bit about everything;
about fears, thrills, dreams, personal growth... though there
are vindicative ones, too. In general, they talk about everything
that moves you from inside”.
La Mari |
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And that experience is captured in the book ‘Enamorá
de la vida, aunque a veces duela’, a title taken from
one of the verses of the mythical rumba ‘Volando voy’
by Camarón. La Mari relates that “it’s
written with my sister Aurora and what it aims at is to give
encouragement to people who are going through the same thing”.
And she wants to make it known internationally, taking advantage
of their upcoming performance at the Guadalajara
Book Fair, within a varied flamenco festival with which
Andalusia celebrates being this edition’s guest of honor.
This ‘bolo’ will kick off the group’s tour
of America and Europe in the upcoming months. Performances
endorsed by previous appearances abroad where “to the
group’s surprise, we saw the concerts fill up, people
even knew the songs and really, the language didn’t
matter; the music goes beyond that”.
As a curious note, it includes a collaboration with Puerto
Rican singer Ricky Martin, which will take Chambao on a tour
of Latin America scheduled for February and March, as a result
of La Mari’s collaboration on the song ‘Tu recuerdo’.
“We met each other at a concert in Madrid, he liked
the group’s style and he liked my voice”. But
there are still other activities in the group’s bag
of tricks, including “together with other people from
the world of art, cinema and music, we’re going to start
up the Fundación Voces (Voices Foundation) next year
to collaborate with children’s development”.
Flamenco chill still has a long way to go. And no obstacles
in the way. La Mari is always surprised by being asked a tiringly
recurrent... but inevitable question: How has the purist faction
reacted to this new fusion? “I’ve never heard
any purists criticize Chambao. But I’m always saying
I don’t sing flamenco and I don’t do flamenco.
When composing, that flamenco streak in me comes out from
everything I’ve listened to at home since I was a little
girl. So I carry it inside me. Of course, pure flamenco is
something else... it’s a way of life. And my lifestyle
isn’t flamenco”.
Chambao
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