Silvana Estrada (Veracruz, 27 years old) says that the Venezuelan cuatro was her first love and the healthiest of all. That while she learned to play the piano by memorizing scores and surrounded by classical theory, this modest four-string instrument invited her to experiment. To touch it without thinking too much. Thus, a little Silvana associated music with enjoyment and play. That discovery is today the flag of his music that resists (and triumphs) in a record industry obsessed with production and speed. “My path collides with these schemes of the voracious,” he says in the garden of a hotel in the center of Medellín. “I grew up in nature and I try to maintain those organic times in my music.”
That speed of life makes the homemade YouTube videos of Estrada in his room, with a guitar and that voice that always lives on the edge, seem ancient. About to break, but no. The Mexican assures that despite having won a Grammy for Best New Artist in 2022 and having been nominated this year for Best Global Music Performance for ‘Miracle and Disaster’little has changed their way of inhabiting the world. On the contrary. He believes that, like his parents’ profession, luthier, his songs are “a vehicle for someone else to shine and feel.” “I would like to think that both offices are an act of service,” he says at the end of August, at the Philosophy Festival organized by the Antioquia Family Compensation Fund (Comfama).
A few weeks after returning in concert to Bogotá—after canceling part of her tour in August due to loss of voice—the artist vindicates the politics behind intimate singing and beautiful love. ”You are not going to understand caring love if you do not understand the feminist struggle,” she says. Daughter of jazz, bossa nova and son jarocho, Estrada makes alchemy with her lyrics and provides a soundtrack to the lights and shadows of a generation that seeks to find itself in care and calm. Their music is as much a lullaby as it is a coven. And she, the Venezuelan cuatro of the current musical scene.
Ask. Women of our generation grew up listening to songs that spoke of a possessive and long-suffering love. You sing about beautiful and careful love. How did the concept transform for you?
Answer. It has been a process of years. Meaning it in ways that are kinder to myself, more loving and less suffering. Our generation was hit by hurtful love. Rather than building the concept, we have had to deconstruct it and remove weight and limits. I think we are in a difficult but beautiful moment of rethinking how we want to love and, above all, how we want to be loved. In my process I had to go through very difficult situations and through pain understand reality and the world. Not so that it stays, but so that it is a window.
Q. Is it political to sing to a love that cares?
R. Yes, totally. I believe that love is a conglomeration of the human experience. People talk a lot about the afterlife and the mystery of death. For me, love is already a mystery from beyond. It is important to inhabit it with great awareness and not take it for granted. It is so abstract that it condenses politics, social issues, history… Understanding it places you in a place of political awareness. Because you will not understand caring love if you do not understand the feminist struggle.
Q. And look, it’s difficult to continue evoking emotions when everyone sings about love…
R. It’s crazy. It is the most popular song in the world and there is no better song. (Laughs). Oscar Wilde said that all books are about love. And truly yes, if we take it out of the box of romantic love. It is what sustains the world. I also remembered what (Roberto) Juarroz said, that love begins where God ends.
Q. Still, it has a bad reputation…
R. Yes, because romantic love… Oh, romantic love! (Laughs). Not only is it cheesy but it is harmful and has oppressed millions of women. How many men kill in the name of “love”? In the name of that distortion of love.
Q. It is common for musicians to end up giving in to commercial pressure. You hold on to the roots. Because?
R. There is a lot of theory as to why I do what I do. And why don’t I do anything more pop or reggaeton. The simplest answer is that I make the music that I like. I make the songs that don’t exist and that I would like to hear.
Q. So we won’t see Silvana Estrada singing trap…
R. I don’t think so. I would love to, but I don’t think… (Laughs).
Q. Aren’t you afraid of overexposing yourself?
R. Yes, yes. It had never happened to me, but now that I’m on a new album, I notice it. I don’t censor myself but it has been difficult for me to take a little more distance. In recent years, more difficult things have happened to me, grief, existential questions… And suddenly it feels embarrassing. Because this industry is ufff… It asks you to be strong and healthy. And I can’t always. And sometimes I’m embarrassed to write from that most sensitive and hurt part.
Q. I recently launched the single of Miracle and disaster. What is the miracle and what is the disaster of this industry?
R. The miracle is the music. It always will be. There are beautiful things within the industry… But miraculous things exist with or without the industry. Fraternity, sorority… that already exists. Sometimes I think I would even exist more without it. The industry is the business order for those bright things. But it brings many disasters. He is very voracious with artists, very demanding. What is driving us crazy is the speed of the world. That an artist releases a song every Friday, that didn’t exist. Just as access to music was democratized, they have also generated a lot of anguish. And I include myself. Mental health is a very recurring topic among artists. How do I live this from pleasure and not from the fear that tomorrow 15,000 albums will be released and I’m here looking for mine, which means everything?
Q. How do you manage it?
R. Being as honest and frank as possible with me. Even if you feel pressure, well so sorrybecause I have to wait to write a song that truly means something. My path in music collides with the schemes of the voracious. I grew up in nature and I try to maintain those organic times in my music.
Q. Do you think that’s part of success? That those who listen to him also seek slow fire?
R. I think so. Because whenever there is a current, there is a countercurrent. People want spaces where they are not in a hurry. Where not to have endless stimuli.
Q. At some point will that countercurrent become a current? There is a generation of singer-songwriters like Silvia Pérez Cruz, Natalia Lafourcade, Valeria Castro… who demand a similar view.
R. I don’t think so. As long as we live in a capitalist world they will not allow it. They are not going to allow us to buy a vinyl and give us the time to listen to it for two months and then buy the next one. It’s like the movie Perfect Days. The director said he wanted to make a film about someone who wouldn’t buy a new book until he finished the previous one. You have to have a lot of strength not to follow that trend. But I’m not angry with the present either, I think he’s being generous.
Q. Did you feel imposter syndrome?
R. All the time. And now more. I never felt it when I was younger. At 20 I didn’t feel it. I have done many things and I said yes to all of them. And I never felt like an imposter until now. And I attribute it precisely to the times. Under the pressure of speed. Modernity gives me imposter syndrome, which is actually guilt, basically. Deep suffering after success.
Q. And how do you deal with opening concert dates and doing sold out right away, win a Grammy and then go home to fry an egg and talk about nothing with your friends?
R. People who suffer from fame are because they ride the wave of what is expected of them. When I get home, I still go out in my pajamas to buy vegetables. Losing the floor doesn’t happen to me, it’s the other way around. My team has to remind me that I am… a pokemon. (Laughs). That I already have certain things, because I forget.
Q. He grew up in a family of luthiers in Veracruz. Is the composition of your music at all similar to your father’s hands shaping a double bass?
R. The process of a luthier is very patient and very humble because you are making one instrument so that another can shine. That shaped me a lot in being patient with my processes and feeling that what I do is a vehicle for someone else to shine and feel. I would like to think that both are an act of service.
