Interview with Pepe de Lucía, singer:

"These days there are nice singers around, good singers, but like Paco says, they're all clones"

Alberto García Reyes. Seville, November 2002
Translation: Gary Cook

He always has preferred to speak in a soft voice - he doesn't have it in him to shout. Pepe speaks from the heart. He says what he feels before he says what he thinks. He's true to himself. He admits his errors and apologizes for them. José Sánchez Gómez, Pepe de Lucía, el Chiquito de Algeciras, lives on, lives by and lives for flamenco. That's why he distances himself from the "purists" who draw the boundaries of flamenco, who aren't aware just how great the art form they're defending truly is. That's why he's not afraid to denounce them. That's why he's recorded an album of duets, featuring artists like his daughter Malú, Parrita, Niño Josele, Vicente Amigo... While we speak he doodles incessantly on a sheet of squared paper lying on the table. And each scribble ends with an eye drawn over it, watching us. This is the image that sums up his music: no matter what he does, he always ends up going back to the same place, flamenco.

Pepe de Lucía (Photo: Javier Hurtado)

How do you feel now that your new disc's been released - more relaxed?

Me? Yeah. And you? Have you recovered from the Seville Biennial Festival?

Let's say I managed to survive. I see you also survived the making of your album of duets. Was there any philosophy behind the idea?

No, no philosophy, it's another step in my musical career. It includes some of my best-known songs like 'Como el agua', which has been sung by Pink Floyd and loads of other people. I wanted to sing it too. I do stuff with Parrita, Camela, Vicente, Tomatito... There are alegrías written by my son and never previously released, and I also do a number, 'Al alba', with my daughter Malú. In short it's the start of a project, because I'm planning to record more albums of my own songs which have been sung by other artists.

The pairings we see here make one thing very clear: you don't take sides in the eternal struggle between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Are you concerned with this division?

I'm on the side of music, of music in general. Those who are most orthodox always speak of the seguiriya, but the seguiriya is Moroccan, it's Arabian, it's Moorish in origin. The mix of cultures which went into making our own, way back in time, is a mix which brings its own refinements. If you listen to a Pakistani you're listening to a cantaor. If you listen to the Sephardic Jews they're cantaores too. And the same is true of the Indians, or oriental music, it's got a lot in common. Why revere the canon of twenty or thirty approved styles of cante? It doesn't matter if there are twenty, thirty, fifty or a hundred.

	"You have to better yourself to do things more beautifully, with better harmony. And with a wider perspective so an American musician can understand what you do"

To whom or to what do we owe this kind of self-confining philosophy in flamenco?

It's down to the people who shut themselves off by saying you can't break the magic rules. But they have to understand that the human brain must expand its horizons, and you have to better yourself to do things more beautifully, with better harmony. And with a wider perspective so an American musician can understand what you do, not just the same old harmonies, get a wider range in there. We can't just accept that there are 81 cantes. No. Of course there are 81 cantes and they have to be given due respect, because they're part of our roots, and we shouldn't ever break with that cadence. But we also have to improvise, to create - I don't mean any offence to people I respect and admire - but we have to create new styles. That's the way I feel. But maybe I'm wrong.

There are young theorists who say that if flamenco didn't evolve it wouldn't be an art form - it would be a fossil. Do you agree?

Of course I agree. You have to evolve, although you should never lose sight of where you come from. I mean: lereleré... (he breaks into traditional alegrías adding some modern twists). That's good. Now: lereleré... (he breaks into traditional alegrías again, then switches to another tone more like a taranta). But that's not so good, see?

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