“The truth is, I don’t need a very high cachet, or many followers, or audiences with 20-year-old people. I like being where I am. I am at peace, calm and in revolution too, because I am very curious. Learning what I can achieve and telling my ego: be there, calm down. Because you have to let someone else come and teach you. That’s why I don’t believe in trying to monopolize 20-year-old audiences and having to put myself in places where I don’t feel good. Yes, I tell you that, really, music is very broad. We think we know everything and we don’t. We don’t know what can affect each person. I get feedback at concerts. Sometimes the son, the mother and the grandmother come. And that family does not force itself to do that. It is simply the culture of each family.”
These words – the last of a talk lasting more than an hour – serve as a good summary to define the present of María del Mar Rodríguez, “La Mari” or Chambao – as each one prefers. Eight years after her last record production, at the end of 2023 she published a new album and so far in 2024 she continued publishing singles. Now it is her turn to cross the Atlantic Ocean again, from Spain, to give some concerts in Latin American countries that she has already visited decades ago: Mexico, Chile and Argentina.
Next Friday, at 9 p.m., he will sing at the Teatro Coliseo, by Marcelo T. de Alvear 1125. Chambao will be there, with her history and her present: with those songs from the time when, with the arrival of the new century, she was the singer of a rising “flamenco chill” group and was on “the crest of the wave.” and with the premieres that today have it in The crest of now. In reality, the play on words refers to a book that he will publish in September and the album he released at the end of last year.
There are a handful of twelve songs that sound like Chambao, in the clear evolution that could have occurred between Pokito to Poko –his most famous album, published in the middle of the first decade of this century – and this present. And maybe The crest of now represents, if we think of it as a place, a house in Malaga, where she was born and where she lives a woman who is saying goodbye to her “forty-somethings” to look forward to her fifties, who has searched for herself and has found herself, who has made a couple of For decades, when her partners in the successful Chambao project were stepping aside, she continued ahead, sailing as captain. That woman is also the one who has overcome cancer and the one who brought together all those Mari that were inside her.
On the crest of now It is an album with collaborations, with that processed sound that has given it the touch chill to her story and some guitars of that flamenco that has also accompanied her throughout her career. It begins with the sound of a pick frying on vinyl and the sound of a handpan (hang drum) that invites calm. The song is called “Camino a casa” and, perhaps, it gives more clues than we can assume about the singer’s present, now at home, via zoom, sitting in front of her computer camera, with a handpan in her hands. hands, which serves as a prelude to the interview.
“This song came out during a pandemic. I was here alone, hanging around with Lolo and Jara, my dog friends. I had routines to entertain myself and not fall into the story of that moment. The way home metaphorically refers to a look inward to reconnect with yourself and above all with your consciousness, with being here on this earthly plane. Feeling yourself in that union of planes.”
María has dedicated herself to training in coaching and emotional intelligence in recent times: “Although it is something that can affect your life, it is not something that stands out; It’s not that I see the world in a different color. I started studying because I was quite disconnected and wanting to communicate with myself. Heard and understood by myself. Since I was very little I have been curious about the human mind. I have even connected with the breast cancer I suffered in 2005. The better I communicated with myself, the better I would do with whoever was in front of me.. The curiosity started there. My “Maria of the sea apprentice” is hungry all the time. I started with coaching, emotional intelligence and later neurolinguistic programming, which I currently continue. Most people who study this do so because they want to practice, work with it. Not me, I just worked with me, not to give you sessions of coaching. I prefer to continue learning. Technology has put us at a remarkable point in the future. But let’s not forget that we are also nature, we are animals, we are skin, we are feelings.. There are factors that are not predictable in human behavior. In observation and listening we have two great tools to be calm. Today we do everything running. We eat on the run, we make love on the run, we communicate with a friend on the run, with a cell phone in between. And we entered a bad mood. I don’t think it is catastrophic, but we must treat it with the importance it has. You have to know what is urgent and important.”
-Did you ever feel that you connected better with the public than with yourself?
-No, the public is very generic, it is like a ball of energy. Yes, it is true that I have had times thinking about the satisfaction of the person in front of me. But face to face. By all my means, to the point of not recognizing myself, due to my shortcomings and needs at that moment. I was thinking about giving the other person what they were looking for, if they were looking for this one, that one of hers, the famous one… Put on a mask and give yourself a singer’s face. That has taught me a lot because that is where the system crashes, everything resets. And then you can be more you than ever. It’s as if you put truth and purity on the scale. The truth doesn’t matter anymore. Purity is what encompasses and sustains the feeling of realizing what you encompass. When I die I don’t know what I will become, but I’m sure it will be another journey. And this is a packaging that has its limitations and its care.
-Has this happened to you with specific events, like when you were left alone in the Chambao project or when you had to face the illness?
-That reset comes from a moment that you don’t know when it started, but it all adds up. From past relationships with other couples in which I have repeated patterns, or the fact of having been left alone in this project for which It’s hard for me today to explain that Chambao is me all the time.. Because we were four people for four years and I have been Chambao for 23 years. Sometimes I explain it very well and other times I don’t. It stirs my feelings and emotions. In 2018 I didn’t know how to continue. Having breast cancer when I was very young and innocent, perhaps it allowed me to act like a heroine and even hold down my entire family and say: “Come on, I can handle this. The oncologist told me that I am not going to die but we have to climb a high scale.”
-And you uploaded it, María. And in 2018 you would have also raised it again. You also knew how to manage your times, releasing albums when you considered it, beyond the pressures of the music industry.
-The book will be released in September of this year. On the crest of now. The album borrowed its title from the book. Both things speak of the importance of mindfulness and living each moment as the first. Be in full consciousness. Getting to know myself took shape over a few years. There were many people in myself. One that mixed up all the chaos, another that tried to help, another entrenched one that said that you had to finish hitting rock bottom to find out the whole movie and another that said: “enough is enough.” I was always with the same record company until 2018 when I expressed the desire to stop calling myself Chambao and be La Mari. It was the only disagreement I had with Sony, because the relationship has always been very beautiful and enriching. That didn’t add up and that’s why they gave me the free card. Since then I have worked independently. I think one of those Maris was looking for this letter. Because you go where they say the flow goes, but becoming a boss means setting your pace. And that is a very nice job. I did work for a documentary and for a film. On the other hand, music has changed a lot in the last 23 years. First, I stayed for a while without taking anything out, thinking about what I wanted to do: Call myself La Mari or Chambao? Make a new album? ‘Do flamenco chill? Meanwhile, I continued giving concerts and collaborating with other artists. When it became clear to me, the pandemic arrived. I didn’t have to release a record at that time. I waited and one day I said: The pandemic has passed and, in quotes, my identity crisis. Come on, let’s release a record. I’m going to tell people that I’m still Chambao, that I’m still doing fusion, mixing electronics with acoustic things. I love fusion.
-How do you get along with that “Flamenco Chill” label that, in some way, Chambao imposed on it?
-Very good. It was a game. The one who said Flamenco Chill was the producer Henrik Takkenberg, who was part of Chambao in its beginnings. At first there were four of us, Henrik, Dani and Eduardo Casañ and María del Mar Rodríguez. We played to make music. Then each one continued on his way. First for me it is playing until then that music is decided to become a product. That was always the philosophy. I don’t have a record label today. We are forming a team of people who believe in the project. We believe that Chambao still has a lot to tell. We believe in living life calmly and that Chambao is a shelter and a musical refuge where the listener can lie down for a little while. That is the path I am on today. I really am in every plot, from what type of concerts are closed or if I want to return to Latin America, where Chambao was a well-known group. All this has to be put on its feet, after eight years without an album.
-Does it generate expectations for you?
-No. I’m of the opinion not to feed my cortisol too much. I just prepare everything with a lot of love. I think about the best repertoire that could suit Chile or Argentina. I’m not here for a while, I’m here because I want to continue being. Furthermore, today there are many of us in music. I know I don’t want to force it on you.
-In addition, today we are experiencing certain paradigm shifts in the music industry, and new grammars, with genres like trap.
-It’s true. I’m making new songs. They were dating in recent months. “Mañana”, “Más ná”, the day before yesterday I released “The Skin”, with SFDK. I’m looking for different people to get together and co-produce new songs. Recently they told me “What if we put a little vocoder in your voice?” And I said, well, let’s try it. It is interesting to listen to new forms. The vocoder is a very constant element of almost everything. Before we used it only as a small detail. What I don’t see myself saying is “Cora” instead of “heart.” I don’t see myself, nor do I have to. I’m going to turn 50 years old. I love to learn, I’m very spongey, but we shouldn’t take risks to the point of wanting to attract a younger audience and, ultimately, feel older because of it. If I did that it would be to feel older.