La Shica, alternative flamenco group. Interview

“La Shica's challenge is to achieve an original sound”

Silvia Calado. Madrid, October 2005

Flamenco is surrounded by tangents which have a surprise in store for us every now and then. Exploring Madrid's concert halls, discoveries are made such as La Shica, a group called Dios los Cría when it was created behind the scenes of the tablao Las Carboneras. Its core consists of Ceuta-born singer and bailaora Elsa Rovayo and Brazilian guitarist Fernando de la Rúa. Joining them, “of their own free will”, is a contrabass player, percussionists, clapper, rap lyricist, and in the sporadic role of composer, José Luis Montón. Coming out of the encounter is a sound that runs by flamenco (baile included), hip hop, Brazilian music, copla and even reggae, cooked up in a refreshing live show and served with the sole aspiration of “not sounding like anyone else”. There isn't any album yet, or manager, or record company... but they won't be long in coming by the look of things.

La Shica (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Elsa grew up singing songs by Marisol, Dolores la Pescaílla and La Bola de Cristal. “I've liked singing since I was a little girl, but it was really hard for me”. Due to requirements of the script, that is, out of need, “I worked as a singer at times when I came to Madrid, but I didn't want to”. Her aim in the capital, where she arrived at the age of fifteen, was to train as a bailaora. “I went to Amor de Dios to get on the go and I danced until last year, especially at tablaos”. But something told her that it wasn't her way. She tried singing with her tablao colleague Fernando de la Rúa at a joint in Malasaña and got the itch: “Once I started, I couldn't go back to the tablao. I couldn't see myself there. I'd known for some time that I wanted to do something and I didn't know what it was; I knew I had to change gears and I didn't know which way to go. When I tried this, I said there you have it, this way”.

If Elsa came from across the Strait of Gibraltar, Fernando came from across... the Atlantic. After a decade of going from Brazil to Spain to train as a flamenco guitarist, he decided to settle in Madrid five years ago. The son of an emigrant from La Mancha, he got to know flamenco while studying music at the University of Sao Paulo and “I had to put away everything I'd learnt to take on that style”. Since he's been here, he has worked at tablaos such as Las Carboneras and in companies such as Rafaela Carrasco's and that of Manuel Liñán and Marcos Flores. When he discovered Elsa's anxieties, he didn't think twice about it, since “I felt like developing more music besides flamenco, to feel that freedom and in passing, give free rein to all that Brazilian music provided to me by my musical training”.

The first concerts were a year ago now. The band has been taking shape since then, although for the time being, the style “still hasn't been totally defined”, as Elsa recognizes. “I'm really clear on not wanting to do traditional flamenco. Of course it does have some; we use a lot of things from that style because we all understand it; it's easier to communicate”. And when she says all, she means La Shica in its entirety, a group previously named Dios los Cría, which besides the vocalist and bailaora and the guitarist, consists of Pablo Martín Jones and Alex Tobías on percussion, Miguel Rodrigáñez on contrabass and clapping, and the choruses and baile of La Popi and Ana Romero. “It's been a voluntary thing. We didn't come together and propose to form a group, but rather people have joined on their own”.

	La Shica (Foto: Daniel Muñoz)

As Fernando de la Rúa affirms, “we contribute equally to creating the songs, giving our opinions, criticism... and always reaching a solution, a nectar”. The challenge is “to achieve an original sound”. And he considers the lyrics to be fundamental in that goal, since they are “very original and very personal”. Between the communication released by the lyrics and the singer's performance, “half the battle's won to achieving a good arrangement, a good result”. He who writes them, Luis Domercq, recalls that “I starting delving a bit into flamenco style and from there on, I tried to adapt to what she might feel or what might be at ease singing. I wanted to seek out a bit of monkey business, but not to define it as really rap or really flamenco”.

As percussionist Pablo Martín Jones points out, “we've arranged the songs by Luis, some coplas... always seeking a strange, hybrid style”. Which might just as easily straddle a tanguillo or a bulería, as reggae or rap. And joining that repertoire are scores by José Luis Montón: “He saw a concert and he brought some lyrics the next day. He's done two tracks that we adapted to our style”. And that way includes Elsa's baile, between cantecitos. She uses it esthetically and musically, as captivating body expression and as an extra touch of percussion for some songs: “I use everything I know to be misleading (ha ha ha). If I knew any card tricks, I'd do them too. I want to sing, but I also really like dancing. I'm not going to throw everything out that I've learnt and everything I've worked on”. To which the guitarist adds that “it's not traditional baile, but those elements are cool; they provide a really different color”.

And Elsa replies to this rebelliously: “But it's not so strange. How many flamencas used to sing and dance in the olden days? How many rappers are there in flamenco? The thing is they weren't called like that. Lola Flores was a great rapper. My idol is Dolores la Pescaílla; I die for that woman. And she used to sing and dance. It's not new; the way of doing it is new. I've got a bit of flamenca in me, but I'm not really flamenca. I've never entirely fit into that world; I'm more from the 'hood”. Like she says in their hit, with which they shake up the crowd currently following them at Madrid's Contraclub, she's more of a “gypsy rapper”. Beware of her... she'll shake things up and give tangent flamenco a new air.

La Shica en Lavapiés (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

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