Diego el Cigala, cantaor. Interview

“I really needed this flamenco album”

Silvia Calado. Madrid, September 2005

Diego el Cigala returns to flamenco. After selling nearly a million copies of ‘Lágrimas negras’ worldwide, he has taken aim at leading the newly-gained audience to his terrain. To do so, he has sought inspiration in Pablo Picasso, “the most flamenco of all the painters from last century”, and has surrounded himself with “the cavalry”. And the thing is that there is a battalion in charge of the music commanded by no less than Paco de Lucía and Tomatito. The Madrilenian cantaor is satisfied with this much-awaited record, whose production he shared with Paquete during six intense weeks of recording and anecdotes in his own studio. The parade of musicians who stayed at his house have left behind scores of anecdotes, besides one Diego el Cigala thrilled with everyone's involvement. ‘Picasso en mis ojos’ was a necessary album.

Diego el Cigala

Why Picasso?

I didn't want a tribute to Picasso where I'd end up tired of it. I just wanted to put out a message, to do a little tribute and for people to have to check it out by listening to it. And that's on four or five tracks. The other five are about how I view Picasso. That's all.

Did you need to get back to flamenco?

Yeah, I needed this flamenco album. Eight hundred thousand copies of ‘Lágrimas negras’ have been sold. And all those people who've heard it have to get into ‘Picasso en mis ojos’. I've got to teach those people to listen to my records. This isn't going to be just (he sings some lyrics from ‘Lágrimas negras’): “En la vida hay amores que nunca...” (“There are loves in life that never...”). That's really nice, but it's already been done. You have to do other things now: a great flamenco album. And I've called out the cavalry to do so. You take a look at the credits and you say: are all those people there? And the thing is, that way of playing isn't done anymore. I've lived it at the studio. Music's now going in other directions; people take the fast track, go commercial. Not in this; there in the studio at my house, everyone put their heart into it. “You have to play this, there's no flourish here, get on it. I want an alegría with mirabrás. Manuel, get on it”. And Manuel racked his brain and came up with a tremendous flourish five or six hours later that was unbelievable. Diego del Morao came and it was the same. He was going to play two tunes and ended up playing five. Then I kicked him out because he was going to scratch the entire record. He'd come in, sit down there and … bless my soul! With Paco… With Tomate… The thing is, it's a record that makes you grow. It's the album I need.

	Diego el Cigala (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

And it's a record with a lot of guitar, isn't it?

That's what I wanted. And I'm gonna tell you why. And it's that Picasso is the most flamenco of all the painters from last century. When I started getting into Picasso's biography, I flipped out … He had so much art! He used to party all night with Manitas de Plata. He painted the sets for Falla's plays. He went out with Alberti and ended up completely trashed. He used to go and listen to El Cojo de Málaga, Manolo de Huelva. And he liked malagueñas cante more than anything. Womanizer, party animal, night owl… a real flamenco. He was a Cubist? The thing is, he painted like Velázquez when he was just eleven years old. I'm a Cubist, too; I can identify a little with him there. I might just as easily sing you a guaguancó, as a martinete, or go into other areas, but without ever losing that bit of what I am; I'm a flamenco. Lastly, he used to go into a room full of white canvases and give each one a brushstroke. And it turned out later that over the years those unfinished paintings became more valuable than the finished ones. They say he thought he was going to die. Another reason is that great flamenco cantaores have sung to the greats in literature and poetry, but nobody has sung to painting. And much less a flamenco. And that caught my eye. All of this came out at a dinner. Talking about music, I started to wonder: and what now? And as soon as the name Picasso was uttered, a film came to mind … And I told Tomate and he said to me, “kid, you're stark-raving mad!”.

How did the recording go?

	"It's been a record done in seven straight weeks, twelve hours a day. If I'd have drawn this album out to six months, I'd have gotten bored with it"

It's been a record done in seven straight weeks, twelve hours a day. If I'd have drawn this album out to six months, I'd have gotten bored with it. With any record, if you work on it six months to a year, my God, what a tragedy; you start to hate it and never listen to it again for the rest of your life; you go into another world. The thing is these six weeks have been so intense; so many things have happened … People have been popping in at the house every day: Josemi, then Raimundo, then Jerry… Something happening every day. That's been the fun part. There on the technical side were Álvaro from Musigrama and Paquete, who I shared production with. He'd get there in the morning with a plan sketched out; we'd see who had to come. We'd call Morao, he'd catch his plane, they'd go and pick him up, a good dinner and time to play. ‘Aloha’. From four in the afternoon to eight in the morning. And while some were recording, Paquete and I were playing on the PlayStation. “Let's not put that voice in. Yeah, let's put it in. Just play. Well, they should start putting in the bass. Just play”. I wanted to sing. And he'd tell me, no, no, not now. Just play a game and we're doing the guitars.

A flamenco video game should really be made.

It'd be kick-ass. Check one out, come on, malagueñas. ‘Ayaaaayaaaaaaa’. Out. And you hear a voice: “How baaaad!” And for figures on the jury, I'd put El Cabrero, Menese, Calixto and Naranjito de Triana. But you can't shoot the jury. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

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