Respectful experimentation.
From and towards flamenco

Ramón, Marina... Camarón and Morente (Photo: Silvia Calado)

And have you been criticized from the hard wing of flamenco?

Ramón: The mood of Ojos de Brujo is based on respect; that is, we're not trying to be flamencos or to appear as such, nor to label ourselves as modern flamenco or anything like that. Flamenco isn't anybody's property; it's within us like other things and we have the freedom to do what we like. There are already others to do flamenco. Starting with that premise, the critiques have been positive. Of course, statistically there must be a sector that doesn't agree.

Marina: There are fundamentalists in all genres. They're also like that in hip hop. Some say that it isn't hip hop, but what is hip hop? What you do? Why? Because you've been told so? Because it's what they've done in the United States? Unless it's something that's come from somewhere else, people are like afraid. In my book Ojos de Brujo has an absolutely flamenco feeling and soul. In my book flamenco is a completely mestizo music, whether flamenco artists like it or not. I mean, it has drawn from Arab, Jewish, Andalusian sources... It's a mixture of cultures and everyone has contributed to it. The gypsies, with their movement and their nomadism, contributed things they gave and received in Andalusia. There are several sources... and time goes by.

	"Flamenco is a completely mestizo music, whether flamenco artists like it or not"

The same thing is happening now. Flamenco is in many places and it can evolve in many ways and all from the utmost respect and utmost love for flamenco. We are super flamencos. I listen to flamenco jondo at home, but I'm not going to start singing a minera because it's something very distant from me. I do listen to mineras being sung and my hair stands up on end. In my book everything's valid. We as flamenquillos have a lot in common with flamenco people, much more than with people who do pop. We draw from the same source and we have the same love and the same respect for this music. Whoever wants to find differences can always find them, but whoever wants to find friendship and affinity can find them too.

Camarón is like an entity who has to be worshipped nowadays, but when he started to break free, the purists also gave him a hard time and they got alarmed because he was losing purity. What Camarón did is very well done... and thank God that he as well as Paco de Lucía did it and the people who have broken free. Ojos de Brujo is following one of the roads of flamenco's opening. But there's more. A lot of things can happen because times change, people change, social reality changes... and the context has always affected flamenco and its lyrics. Flamenco is a kind of music to express feelings, moans and protests as much from the personal, inside, more existential side as from the social side.

Ramón: Take, for example, 'La leyenda del tiempo'...

Marina: Or look at Triana, look at Pata Negra, look at Tabletom in its time, look at Las Grecas and all the rumba groups back in the seventies and eighties that also broke free. You listen to them now and they sound old, but there they were mixing with electronics, adding keyboards, adding drums... They were doing crazy things! But they're things that make sense. All this started up in the neighborhoods; it's an urban and suburban culture that's there. Why does it have to be denied? The problem with flamenco people sometimes is that they've only heard flamenco. Even if they'd like to, they don't have more culture. We do this music because we've listened to many kinds of music.

Ramón: Music grows when it feeds on other sources.

Marina: It's funny because they give new stuff a hard time but not the commercial stuff that takes advantage of the typical flamenco cliché which, in my book, is what has to be brought down; that peineta (back comb) and lolailo stuff. That's being sold constantly; thousands of copies are sold and nobody says anything. It catches my eye because we're outsiders in the music world; we're a highly experimental, strange offer that doesn't hurt anyone either. We have like our own natural space without stepping on anyone's feet. I myself went to see Agujetas and I went crazy... it's not incompatible. And I've also gone to see flamenco that I didn't like. That doesn't have formulas; it depends on the performer and your tastes. The other day, for instance, we were told that Carmen Linares had heard Ojos de Brujo and she loved it. Hats off to her. Everything that woman has done within flamenco throughout her career is praiseworthy: she's rescued a ton of things, she's done everything from A to Z, she's defended the role of women and olé to her for being someone with awareness. I'm a big fan of hers. And when I was told she liked it, I said, see? When people are open and receptive... And I'm sure that if Enrique Morente heard it he would also understand it, because he's open to other things. Within flamenco, there are fortunately many different attitudes.

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