Valeria Castro: “We are not used to dwelling in tenderness” | Culture

Valeria Castro (La Palma, 25 years old) is one of the most interesting new voices in Spanish music. Her suggestive universe vindicates the human side of life and Canarian folklore allied with the author’s song. This Monday, June 10, she will be at the Alma de Madrid festival, which is held in the Tierno Galván park. An emerging figure who is growing at breakneck speed: her name appears in the festival along with Vetusta Morla, Jorge Drexler and Jamie Cullum.

Ask. in your song Sewing sings: “Everything I have learned from my mother.” Is she a grateful daughter?

Answer. Eternally. I am also a lucky daughter to have the mother I have. She has educated me in values ​​and has always tried to ensure that potholes and falls at least catch me forewarned, and for me that is something to be very grateful for.

Q. Did it influence your dedication to music?

R. I don’t come from a family of artists or anything like that, but they did enroll me at a music school when I was four years old. I try to be aware of and grateful for everything that has happened in my life to get here, and I calculate that, without that decision, perhaps I would not have developed the passion that I have for music today.

Q. He also sings in Ceiling and walls to her sister. Are the women in your house more than important?

R. They are evidence that I am not alone, a mirror where I can look at myself a little. For me they are like that companion whom you look askance at to learn how things are done, from whom you learn to live.

Q. His latest album exudes a lot of self-love.

R. I guess thanks to a year and a half of therapy. From the beginning I started writing to channel the things I had to say to myself, so I could move forward and the things I had to let go of so that they wouldn’t weigh so much inside me. In the end you realize that many of those things are linked to a self-affection that is difficult to reach, but I feel that the songs reach that point faster.

Q. As a result of this album, he has also spoken of tenderness as a revolution. What is it referring to?

R. I think living from the tender point of view is something we are not used to and it has always been more effective for me when it comes to fighting things, with oneself or with others. Vulnerability understands more about affection than reproach. There I believe that tenderness is a good bullet to embrace that human side.

Q. Claims the Canarian sound roots. What do those roots consist of?

R. I keep in mind the rhythms, the instruments, what sounded at home, so that a day does not come when I forget it. I am knowledgeable and respect the heritage (and the always ternary pulse).

Q. Recommend some of that music.

R. I think the Sabandeños are that group that every Canary Islander has an album at home and I would always recommend them, but ‘Nube de Hice’, by Benito Cabrera, one of the best timplistas in the Canary Islands. It is the melody that most reminds me of my Canarian childhood, and I think it is one of the most tender melodies I have ever heard.

Q. Are you worried that you will be pigeonholed into Canarian folk music and be seen as part of a trend of reclaiming folk music?

R. It doesn’t worry me, neither one nor the other. I am aware that I drink from folklore, but I do not make folk music. If they pigeonholed it there it would be nice in case it generates interest in the genre. And I wish that were fashion.

Q. As a Canarian, do you feel that Spain considers the islands as something very far away?

R. I think there is a certain lack of knowledge of the reality and idiosyncrasy of the island, which is reduced to a simple, exotic and commercialized image of what it means to live and be from here. We rarely talk about people, our traditions, the richness of our multiculturalism. Part of the inertia that moves me to talk about my land comes from wanting to value that.

Q. You reflected what happened at the La Palma volcano in your music and supported aid initiatives. How did it affect your family and your land? How do you sing to him?

R. My grandmother lost the family home in the Las Manchas neighborhood like many other neighbors. I feel like people still have some sadness, myself included. I try to sing to her honestly, from the point of view of someone who has experienced it firsthand and who, like everyone, just wants to move forward.

Q. Tourism has become a real problem in their land. There are already mobilizations.

R. They are the response to a general discontent that has existed for years here, we are tired of seeing all the houses converted into holiday homes like in the rest of the country, destroying protected natural spaces or not being able to work where we were born.

Q. He has collaborated with Vetusta Morla, Tanxugueiras and has shared the stage with Silviana Estrada. Who would you like to collaborate with?

R. Jorge Drexler, Sílvia Pérez Cruz or Natalia Lafourcade have always been some of the names that are most on my mind. The one who changed the way I looked at music and felt it was Sílvia Pérez Cruz. Although the one who has always somewhat dictated my musical taste and, therefore, also how to live it, has been my sister Paulina.