Hemeroteca.Read all the interviews of the 'against' of El Mundo
Estefanía Correia.
Las Palmas, 1994. She won an
Operation Triumph
marked by the pandemic, they call her the
Spanish Beyoncé
against her will, she will star in a Netflix series and she releases her first 'single':
Malayerba
.
His 2020 has been good.
You affirm that Malayerba is a song to say enough is enough, to what? Enough of toxic people who don't let you move on. I say stop to possession and toxic love. Have you had any relationship like that? The truth is that no, I think I find what I project and that is joy and goodness. I have not had any partner who is toxic, but although it has not happened to me, I have many people around me who do. Unfortunately, relationships like this abound, that when you see them you ask yourself: "How can you allow it?" The message I want to give with the song is that you have to flee from that. You also say that it is a song of empowerment. How do you understand feminism? I propose feminism as it is: equality between men and women. I try to live my life like this, with that philosophy, although it is true that, without realizing it, perhaps because of the way we have been raised or because of society, I still sometimes have sexist behaviors. We all have them, me too, I recognize it and try to change them. That's the most important thing: realize and correct them. The percentage of success after Operación Triunfo is not very high, do you worry? I know that it is not a guarantee of anything having won, but I am not looking for success, I just want to make a living from this. Obviously, OT is a very big step, but I used to do cabaret before, I made a living like that and I was happy. I left there crying with grief. Now I'm going to try something else, but as I feel pressure, I cut my losses fast. I know that I will not always be in the media and nothing happens. It is not a question that I am not ambitious, simply my ambition is to be happy living from something that I like. Are you making the music you want to do or the music that is expected of you after winning OT? The one I want. Maybe people expected something else from me, something more
mainstream
, but since I left OT I said I wanted to make Latin music and not what they wanted to push me towards.
I did a performance on a Beyoncé song that has five million views on YouTube and everyone thought that was my style.
And no, does that typecasting have to do with race?
Yes Yes.
The Spanish Beyoncé.
But I like Latin music!
It is a compliment to be compared to her, but it is clear that they only call me that because I am black and have sung a song.
His style has nothing to do with what I want to do.
Going back to OT, you were hit by the pandemic.
You were inside the Academy without knowing anything about what was happening outside and, suddenly, they sent you home.
How did you live it?
It was horrible.
We didn't know anything, zero.
Outside you were living little by little how things were going, but for us it was suddenly.
We did the last gala at the Academy and when I finished I saw Noemí (Galera) very badly and I thought: "There is something strange here."
And on Monday they tell us that we have to go home.
And for me that was a slap in the face.
Fuck, for once I show up on a TV show, because I didn't like them, and there's a pandemic.
Why didn't you like talent shows?
Because many times talent does not prevail but other interests.
But when I did the casting I already saw that that was not going to happen in OT because all the participants had something special.
That's where my fears left me.
The case, that I present myself to a television program, I am inside, I am happy, I am doing well and it ends suddenly.
And on top of that you go outside and it's the apocalypse.
It was very hard.
What did you think when you went out and saw how the country was?
It was a horrible shock, a movie.
When I got to the Barcelona airport it was deserted and I didn't understand all the new security measures that were in place and I started jumping barriers without realizing it until a flight attendant asked me what the hell I was doing.
And I: "Sorry, I don't know what's going on, I just came out of a place where I've been disconnected from the world for weeks, I'm sorry." Who knows what the woman would think of me. In a program like this, do you feel a Fish in an aquarium? You don't even think they are watching you. It has been the best experience of my life and I would repeat it again 400 times. Even losing? What is losing? Because once you get in there you have already won. In fact I I thought that, maybe, getting out of the first few would even be good for me to start looking for things before the others. I go in, do a couple of finery well, go out and see if someone signs me. You weren't the typical contestant: you were Older, you were already working and you entered with a professional vision of the Claro issue. I've been working on this for years and I already know what there is. What I wanted was an opportunity to try to make my music, but, if not, I was so happy working and singing songs of others. And if that allowed me to live a little better after going out, great. How was your career?
to up there?
As a child in the Canary Islands, I went to all the song festivals there were and to be, because my grandmother signed me up for everything.
I liked her, but I've always been very lazy and she was the one who pulled me.
And there was a moment when the island became tiny for me.
I was studying Physical and Sports Activities, the upper cycle;
when I saw the casting of the musical of The Lion King and I signed up.
I went to Madrid, I did it and they call me every month.
I lived with my boyfriend in an apartment in the south of the island and, when I hung up, I said: "I'm not going."
I was very scared, what was I going to do in Madrid ... I was super scared and they had to push me.
Now, look, they don't even take me out of here with hot water.
I love Madrid, but I was terrified of leaving the island.
It is logical, how old were you?
I turned 19 in Madrid.
I was at
El Rey León for
three years, then I went to Lío, which is a cabaret in Ibiza, and that's when I said: "This is what I really like, I want to be a
showgirl
."
There I discovered that I loved to dance and sing Latin music and I also did that later in a similar place in Dubai.
Then the casting for
Operación Triunfo
y
p'alante came out.
Weren't you afraid anymore?
This time my fear was that they were not going to catch me because of my experience and my age.
I had seen that the
target
Previously I was younger and I was already 25, but they caught me.
And there I was very happy, but once I went through phases I already got a knot in my stomach thinking: "Damn, this is serious, maybe I'll get in."
And I went in and this time I didn't want to escape.
In the final gala you came out with your natural curly hair and there were reactions against it.
How do you handle racism?
I know I shouldn't, but it still amazes me.
It is that there are things that I do not understand.
Without going any further, yesterday I saw a video of people in the Canary Islands insulting immigrants who had arrived by boat ... I took it off because it made me very angry, because when I see this kind of thing it makes me really want to cry and a lot of helplessness.
I do not believe that this type of thing is happening although I know that it is.
And the hair thing in OT seemed like a real bullshit to me.
How can you laugh at someone wearing their natural hair?
He's racist and he's ignorant. Does this kind of thing happen to you very often? Very rarely, really.
As a child, the children made a comment that I did not take into account either, but when I arrived in Madrid I did have a racist episode.
I especially remember one with an older woman who accidentally broke a plant with my backpack.
"You come here to bother!"
And I: "Madam, I'm from the Canary Islands."
"Well, with more reason," he told me.
And what am I going to say, you know?
I'm sorry to give up on racism, but I can't go on educating everyone. Now you have a great speaker ... Yes.
I try to do what is in my power, but I cannot change anyone.
Besides, it makes me anxious trying to make people see points of view that they will never understand.
In a very different tone, you also went viral when you recounted a sexual experience with a ping pong ball.
Were you surprised by the commotion?
You see.
That I was news in newspapers because a ping pong ball stays inside me, with the things that were happening in this country, is crazy.
With sex I am super open and I tell my experiences out loud.
And do you know what happens?
That inside the Academy you lose the pot and you forget the cameras.
They are many months, many days and you are relaxing.
But if a guy had told a sexual anecdote, he would have fallen in grace without much scandal.
You're also going to star in a Netflix series.
I think the first time I freaked out about something related to this was when my agents told me that I had an audition for a series that Manolo Caro (
showrunner
of
La casa de las Flores
) is
going to do
.
I stood in front of the computer hallucinating.
It is very strong because everything I have dreamed of is suddenly coming. Have you had time to sit down and think about everything that has happened?
No. I'm still freaking out and I'm still not aware of everything that's happening to me.
I'm living and I'm freaking out.
I live-freak, I live-freak
and so I advance.
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