Perreo catharsis in Madrid with Karol G | Culture

Karol G has inaugurated the bichota party in the capital with a historic success: four Bernabéu stadiums packed to the rafters. This Saturday more than 60,000 pastel-colored souls sang together to the “clowns” of their exes, to the “idiot” who told them they weren’t going to find one like him, to the desire they have to kiss others, to how bad they had it one day and how good they could have it that night. This is how Carolina Giraldo started with the success TQG (Te queda grande) in which he joins Shakira to take revenge with spite and sarcasm for her breakups. A declaration of intentions about what happened during more than two hours of concert.

At the doors of the venue, three friends had put plastic diamonds on their eyelids, they had raided Ali Express with all the pink accessories, skirts, lipstick, glasses. And they landed in Madrid with a single purpose: to have a good party together, to dance until they reached the bottom, like when they were teenagers. “Today, when we were putting on makeup together, I was thinking about when was the last time I did that with my friends. And look at me, I’m 34 years old and I look like a girl.” teenager“Arantxa, Raquel and Iara’s boss, laughed, nodding along beside her with a glass of beer. Since this Saturday, a Lidl in Mallorca has been left without part of its staff in the middle of the high season. Arantxa says: “Today I am the biggest one. Tomorrow I am going back to Los Planetas.”

There were rivers of pink cowgirl hats, silver pants, fishnet tops, and fuzzy snow boots in the heatwave. Colombian flags on T-shirts, hats, and cell phone cases. And a woman in a motorized wheelchair was moving quickly through the crowd with a sign on her back that bore the title of one of the Colombian’s hits: The Makinon.

“We are provincial ladies entering the Bernabéu. And there are already more of us than those who came to see Mbappé,” said two friends and a friend who arrived on Saturday from San Sebastián, laughing, and recalled how just five years ago Karol G appeared on some television programme and still nobody knew her. “I remember when she came two years ago and got on a Pride float and sang Tusa… From then on, it started to become a big hit here in Spain. And look now, how many times has Taylor Swift filled it? Twice? And the hottie, if she has a fifth date, fills it,” said another friend shortly before entering the concert.

“I bought the tickets in advance, not knowing that there were going to be more dates,” explains another woman, with a certain resignation, “and then he announces that since the end of the tour is in Madrid, the last concert is going to be broadcast live. I’m sure he’ll bring all the collaborations that day. I just hope he does the same today, because that’s what the first one is for.” She didn’t know that yet when she was dancing with dozens of other women, most of them in their thirties, outside the stadium to the soundtrack of Karol G that was set off by the food, drink and music stalls. merchandising unofficial. But the Colombian artist did not bring any of the artists who collaborated on her latest album on stage on Saturday night. She repeated the repertoire that she has been performing for more than a year in more than 60 concerts around the world. The surprise gift for the first attendees was S91, which, he said, he had only performed three times this year on tour.

Karol G took her place in that ragbag that is urban music in 2017, boosted by the birth of the platforms of streaming and the conversion of reggaeton into the new pop. She rode that wave and there she began to tell her version of the story, the version of the women who until then (exceptions in the history of this genre are few) were the object of reggaeton and trap lyrics, to become the subject.

The 17 songs from his latest album Tomorrow will be nice are, for the moment, the culmination of that journey to the throne that has allowed her to fill the Bernabéu for four days in a row with a final total that will exceed 200,000 attendees. On Saturday night, the majority were women. They arrived “beautiful with their outfitswith the topsitos full of sparkles, pink hats and little jeans “They make that little ass of them,” Karol G was full of praise. As the hours passed, they were all transformed into her, the bichota, the name with which the followers of the Colombian woman identify themselves, who gave new meaning to the word to refer to a woman with power.

Turned into bichotas, or “mamasotas” as the singer called them, emboldened by the oxytocin discharges that each Karol G song activated in their brains, they stopped just singing songs, they started singing them to them. It was clear from the way they raised their index fingers towards the sky, clenched their fists or gesticulated energetically that the recipient was someone else.

What happens on the dance floor and in the stands is similar to that moment when a group of women meet to go out partying, as 200 Copas tells us. They start with the ritual at home, they put on makeup and dress for a night that is supposed to be a night of debauchery and they end up having more than one drink – like the one Karol G herself had when the first chords of that song started – crying, ranting and hoping that tomorrow will be another day (a nicer one, as her song says). “They say that having a drink is a good thing, but it is not a bad thing.” shot “With the bitch it’s good for your health,” the queen declared on stage, before screaming her lyrics: “Tonight I’m going to fulfill my mission: that you repeat the piece of shit is him and it’s not me.” Thousands of women raised their hands as if they were drinking and toasting her. Every “idiot” that came out of their mouths had a seemingly clear recipient.

On Saturday night, the conclusion was that it doesn’t matter how many times you stumble on the same stone, because at the Bernabéu no one had come to judge the person next to them. They were there to cure themselves for a while. heart and start to get over the hangover (that feeling between nostalgia and resentment that comes after a breakup). A gigantic exercise in catharsis that sometimes beasts need.

Towards the end, Karol G was moved by a standing ovation that lasted more than 5 minutes, with the stadium surrendered to applause. “I cry for everything,” she managed to say with her hands covering her face. The audience continued chanting her name. Before starting the last song and wrapping herself in a Spanish flag, she said: “I am just a girl who one day dreamed of something and it came true.”

— Wow, what a blast. I love them, motherfucker.