Natalia Lafourcade and her emotional compass

By Gerardo Guarache Ocque

It's December 2012, Christmas eve. His manager, his family, almost everyone tells him not to do it. He has time, money and desire, but they say: Nat , no . She ignores the warnings, gets on a plane and, without protocols, appears smiling on the stage of the Centro Cultural BOD in Caracas to surprise the audience of Los Amigos Invisibles , his friends, who play at home.

It is not a promotional visit, it does not add anything metallic, it is not "strategic" for her record label, but she, even though she was a great artist, very successful inside and outside of Mexico - the Hispanic-American megaphone - wanted. For a good vibe, good note, because yes, served as an opening to the Venezuelan funk band without appearing in the promotion or tickets for the shows, without their band or helpers or anything. Pleasantly, it was a souvenir, a great gift that the sextet offered to its audience.

This is Natalia Lafourcade , a Veracruz artist who seems to grow steadily in all directions but especially inward. If someone bet to its expiration in the times of the boom that generated "In the 2000", lost. He lost everything.

In 2000 (2002): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqr-Ku5EaGE

He was 20 years old when he broke into the Latin American scene with that self-titled album and songs like "Te quiero dar" and "Elefantes", which took a bit of rock, something from the bossa and generated a sweet snack that looked like dessert and turned out to be just a appetizer.

Grow

"I wanted to be something that was not me," she said, already thirty, about the Natalia of that time. The Natalia who received money and knew the fame, with its honeys and bitter. The one that experienced the first strenuous tours and the pressure of executives who asked for new songs to him. The one that decided to stop presenting alone in the marquee to add three limbs and say: I am Natalia and La Forquetina .

It seemed a very big challenge, but talent can do it all, especially to get second albums like Casa , which offered the same medicine but debugged the formula. Songs like the one that gave the title to the album, the other single called "Cuarto sobre" or one to which he put "Worm", were samples of its evolution. Some of them will laugh now, but they were part of a valid search between electronic elements, more keyboards and stridency; All supported, in his role of producer, by Enmamuel del Rea l, "Meme" of Café Tacvba .

Home (2005): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo0MYpoJXVQ

Lafourcade soon showed his personality. Hundreds of thousands of copies sold of their albums did not alter their compass. The young woman crossed a path that is usually a storm of cynicism and left intact on the other side. When her Forquetina broke, she braced herself, retracted her flight plan, and continued alone. Could have recorded a very pop album, very artificial, very sexy, expressly accept the machine to produce wool. But no. He returned from a stay in Canada and dedicated himself to working with the Veracruz State Youth Symphony Orchestra in an instrumental work, a kind of soundtrack of a film he imagined in his head and called The 4 seasons of love .

Hu hu hu, his next album, closed that time. The little Natalia of the double tail and the round lipstick had faded. Travels through Europe, South America, the United States, Canada and 14 days in Japan become documentary. Collaborations with colleagues like Julieta Venegas and the absorption of a symphonic experience. By the way, in those days, she assumed the role of producer. She listened to the tracks from While You Sleep (2010) and helped her compatriot Carla Morrison to cover them for the general public. Natalia's compass already gave to guide others.

Hu hu hu (with Julieta Venegas, 2009): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDqfMbMCNoo

The root

It's 2013. June is about to reach its half. Natalia Lafourcade arrives in Caracas, almost six months after that experience with her panitas, who are like older brothers who care for her, Los Amigos Invisibles. This time he traveled with his team and his seven musicians, among them a local tan, the caraqueño Gustavo Guerrero , former leader of an extinct band called Cunaguaro Soul , that has become his great ally and musical director. He arrived to present in Venezuela a new album that he dedicated completely to Agustín Lara .

Everything is ready to begin. It sounds generic music with low volume, the instruments shine from the stage. The audience filled the same room she met in December, the BOD Cultural Center. They applaud each other, but nothing. Natalia does not go out. Twitter is rumored to have had an accident. Soon a spokesperson will come to the stage to confirm it.

The artist dropped a suitcase on her foot and sprained her ankle. She's in the clinic, she's examined, she's splinted, but she's coming. He wants to play. She is anxious like these people waiting for her. It happens a while, that does not feel so long, and Natalia comes out, smiles, jokes because she has taken many analgesics. Splendid, she tells everyone that they are beautiful and so, moving with one leg of the piano to another chair, between guitars, ukuleles and roadies that help her, sings with her angelic voice, gives a concert to mourn the joy.

This is Natalia Lafourcade , the artist who at that moment opened a new chapter of her life. A chapter that continues to be written today, which is nothing more than an introspective journey. She is an artist who can not sing something that does not absorb the pores of her skin, that does not erect her hair. The feeling must be authentic.

The same compass took her to the orchestra director Alondra de La Parra , creator of the project Travieso crimson , thanks to which Lafourcade, along with Ely Guerra and Denise Gutiérrez (Lo Blondo), went into pieces by Maria Grever, Agustín Lara, José Alfredo Jiménez, Gonzalo Curiel. Mexicanísimo everything. "From there arose my restlessness and with whom I connected more was with Agustín Lara - said Lafourcade in an interview in 2013 - He had a lot of versatilidad of sort. I could mix Mexican with tango and something French. It had the color and the influences of Mexico, with the context of that traveled much. And I want my music to transcend in that sense, to be very universal but with roots. "

For Divine Woman , a studio album followed by a live recording in the Roberto Cantoral Telephone Room, she invited a bunch of acclaimed colleagues, from Gilberto Gil to Vicentico (Fabulosos Cadillacs), Miguel Bosé to Leon Larregui (Zoé), Devendra Banhart or Jorge Drexler, Adrián Dárgelos (Babasónicos) or Kevin Johansen. They sang songs like "María bonita", "Piensa en mí" and "Aventurera", a strict selection of the interpreter, who only and exclusively chose That she could sing as if she had written it. It was a great Latin American party inspired by the eternal skinny lover, genius of letters and melodies.

"Think of me" (2013): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbVND6uRBwU

The muse

Until the root (2015), a sixth work that produced with the help of the Argentinean Cachorro López and his countryman Leonel Garcia , was the synthesis of all his learning until the moment and the demonstration of its faculty to mix without dissonance. Bossa, orchestration, boleros, experimentation with electronic bases, traditional Mexican and Latin American music all came together in 12 new songs that accompanied her when she mended her wounded heart after a romantic breakup.

Again, little Natalia showed her emotional musculature. He triumphed, sold a lot and took home a Grammy to Best Latin Rock Urban or Alternative Album and two other awards in the Spanish-American version of that gala. She could have fallen asleep in the quicksand of commercial success and the glamor of recognition, but her compass guided her through a shortcut.

"To the Root" (2015): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKmPci5VXz0

Of all the musicians he could call in the world to work, he chose two gentlemen, Juan Carlos Allende and Miguel Peña, who call themselves Los Macorinos , whose ages he did not even know. They could be her parents or grandparents, but Natalia wants her music to not have ages. That is why he forged the project since he fell in love with them in a Homage Tour to Chavela Vargas in which he shared with old school artists like Eugenia León, Regina Orozco and Tania Libertad. He lived with Allende and Peña, with his ally Gustavo Guerrero, the Argentine producer Cheché Alara and the Venezuelan engineer Héctor Castillo - known for his work with David Bowie, Björk, Lou Reed, Roger Waters, Gustavo Cerati- and that Mexican-Argentine-Venezuelan connection, gave an offer to all this region Which shares earth, moods, feelings and colors.

Chavela Vargas, Frida Kahlo, Violeta Parra, even the writer Clarice Lispector, Natalia Lafourcade dedicated Musas , an album recorded as if they were all in the 50s. Totally organic and artisanal, recorded live, with vihuela, charango Peruvian, four Venezuelan, a legendary drum and many guitars.

"You do know you love me" (2017): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABLT6hdgEek

They began with a list of jewelry of the Latin American songbook. More than 50 themes. Lafourcade wrote several, including the single "Tú sí sabes quererme", and took others from that immense catalog like "Soledad y el mar" (David Aguilar), "What I got out of love with you" (Violeta Parra) and "Tonada de luna Full "(Simón Díaz). For the bolero "Tú me acostumbraste" (Frank Domínguez), invited the Cuban singer Omara Portuondo, brilliant at 86 years.

No matter what happens in the music scene. Natalia does not mind going against the grain. Each time seems to be clearer. Before working on your next proposal, you will return to look at that infallible emotional compass, to see what path it suggests.