The last Latin Grammy gala far exceeded the expectations of Uruguayan singer Jorge Drexler, who won seven gramophones gilts, including two for a singular theme in his production, “Tocarte”, the result of brushing against alien fields and forms in his surprising alliance with the Spanish C. Tangana.
«It is not easy to relate sex without falling into areas where you do not want to enter or into banality; That is why it is important to share authorship, because it allows you to blame someone else and go to new territories”, reflects the artist with a laugh in an interview with EFE before celebrating, this time without sarcasm, how this topic is treated “wonderfully in the urban music, in a very frontal way”.
He concedes that not everyone likes this approach, perhaps because, associated with it, aspects such as “machismo, gender discrimination or rudeness” sometimes appear.
“Serious Music”
«But many of the criticisms that are made of reggaeton and urban music are more due to sexualization than because the same parameters with which it originated in the 90s continue to exist. It has evolved a lot since the first reggaetons of ‘dembow’, that they were relatively homophobic, to Bad Bunny’s ‘Yo perreo sola’, ”he argues.
The Puerto Rican was, together with the Spanish Rosalía, one of the great victims of that award ceremony, on November 17 in Las Vegas (USA); This time, the Uruguayan who lives in Spain is very careful that they once again present his triumph before them as that of “serious music” before the rhythms of the new generations.
«When it is said that ‘today’s music is shit’ it is a discrimination based on age and it is not new. There is no one who has affirmed this to whom they have not said the same 30 years before », he argues before inviting them to explore the Jamaican origins of reggaeton and « that incredible rhythm of 3-3-2 that the milonga also has ».
A night to remember
On how he lived the last Latin Grammys ceremony, Drexler He recounts the atmosphere in a space for 15,000 people and the competition in categories with much more “media” nominees, who received ovations with their mere mention, in contrast to the calm acclaim when he was the one who went up to collect the award.
«There was a moment that I got the impression that I was ruining the party for a lot of people. The second time I went up in the middle of silence, I almost failed to apologize,” he says with humor after that “wonderful exaggeration” of seven awards.
Jorge Drexler even made the distinction for Best Song in the Portuguese Language his own, something especially pleasing for this artist, who learned the language by listening to that “Olympus of Brazilian song” made up of figures like Caetano Veloso, and whose doors he seemed to finally knock on. with that Latin Grammy.
It also represents quite a journey for a composer who sold 33 copies of his first album 30 years ago and who is recognized as an example at some stage of his life of “industrial failure” (“Not musical”, he specifies), although He flatly rejects the idea of now going through a stage of vindication.
«There is nothing worse than wanting to be vindicated. Those processes to begin with come from feeling inferior in conditions or on a plane of superiority and I have never felt like that. I have never complained about anything and I have been happy with what has happened to me in life, God forbid me from feeling like a winner », she assures.
Collaboration C. Tangana
He points out that the key to his career has always been to “tense creativity”, something for which in this last stage the meeting with a younger artist like C. Tangana has been crucial since, in June 2020, they wrote in just six hours the sensual “Tocarte”, which received the awards for Best Recording of the Year and Song of the Year at the Latin Grammys.
“It has been a privilege to write with someone of that talent and vision. The idea was to feel like an apprentice. To begin with, it was not my rhyming system, since it went against all my pseudo-academic principles, but there is nothing better than finding a universe that at first does not seem like yours and that ends up being so”, celebrates Jorge Drexler.
And who would end up writing two other hit songs with C. Tangana at El Madrileño, “Nominao” and “Hong Kong”.