CHRISTINA LOUIS
@cristinaluisf
Madrid
PHOTOGRAPHS: ÁNGEL NAVARRETE
Updated Tuesday, December 20, 2022-00:56
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Culture Gas station music: cassette, road and sing
Music The anti-marketing stars
Eight years ago,
Maka
was released from prison and published
PNA
, an album with which he tried to turn his life around and redeem himself after innumerable problems with the law.
Four years ago, it filled the Sala But in Madrid, with a capacity for 1,000 spectators.
And, two weeks ago, he
sold out
at the WiZink Center in the capital with 15,000 tickets sold.
Without a record company, without sounding on the radio and without sponsors, the man from Granada
has needed less than a decade to show that succeeding in music with his back to the industry is possible
.
"It is true that it is not something sudden, it takes a process. You do not hit the ball like others who put a fucking advertisement on them and boom!, they hit the explosion. But it is nice because you are learning, growing and assimilating things better to take the next step. For me, all this is a source of pride", affirms an emotional Maka before his full house in Madrid.
The appointment is the logical conclusion to his tour this 2022. He began in January selling all the tickets in Vistalegre and
has more than 100,000 seats this year
, including a double full at the Palacio de los Deportes in his native Granada.
"Throughout the tour we have played it with a lot of fear and a lot of money bet.
I was screwed with the money I gave. It was all the savings I had since I started
because one knows what the artist's life is like and always saves just in case But you have to bet on yourself, and look how well it has gone", he acknowledges.
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Maka: "Music has made me useful, it has been my salvation"
Since the implementation of platforms such as Spotify or YouTube, the debate about whether it is possible to have a successful career without signing with one of the large multinationals has been recurring.
The issue reached great interest in 2018, when C. Tangana and Yung Beef held a heated public discussion in which the man from Madrid defended changing the industry from within and the ragpicker spoke of the power of the internet to "not depend on sons of bitches dressed in hashtag".
At that time, both options seemed like a utopia, but time has proved them both right.
Now anyone can buy a microphone online and download recording software.
Publishing music by investing very little money is possible.
The platforms are, by far, the main means of consumption for listeners.
This is indicated by the data from Promusicae in its 2022 report:
Spaniards have dedicated 191.5 million euros to music consumption this year
and streaming has monopolized 87% of the market.
Maka's own audience confirms this.
Half an hour before the start of his concert, people of all kinds gather around the WiZink.
Mothers accompanying their minor daughters, couples in their twenties or forties and groups of friends.
Some more flamingos.
Others more urban.
But they all say the same thing: they found out about their music on the internet.
"We have come from León just for the concert and we are going back tonight
," says Patri, 24, accompanied by three friends.
"We discovered their music on YouTube through a collaboration and since then we've been big fans," they confess in unison.
They also emphasize with one voice that what they like most about him are his lyrics.
"They are very heartfelt. They have nothing to do with the typical songs that simply join words. They have a lot of background,"
they say.
A statement supported by Dani and Jennifer.
"His music fills us up a lot. It reaches you deep inside," explains the couple, both of whom also came from outside the capital.
Since its inception, the man from Granada has blended flamenco with Latin and urban rhythms.
In his lyrics he talks about overcoming, personal growth or love and heartbreak.
"Even though sometimes it hurts you/ Do not be afraid of love/ If you are disappointed/ There is always someone like you/ There is always someone different/ Someone with a pure heart/ Who only thinks of loving you/ Explain to me why you live/ Only healing scars"
, sings in
Healing Scars
, one of his most popular songs.
At 37, Francisco Javier Rodríguez Morales served three years in prison for the robbery of a game room and for possession of hashish.
His lack of freedom made him change his way of seeing things.
In prison he trained, read books and began to take seriously the music that he had sucked on since he was little thanks to his grandfather, a cantaor, and his mother.
"There I saw the harsh reality, that the days do not run, that it is very easy to enter but that it is very difficult to leave," he recalls.
"In there we had a small studio with the basics and a stage where the prisoners from different modules went and saw us perform. I was like a celebrity because they came and you gave them those moments of joy. It was very appreciated."
The experience in jail has marked his obsession for fans to feel identified with his lyrics.
"I see that they make many of my songs their own, they serve as an example. It helps them a lot and that helps me too,"
she explains.
"I thank them because they have changed my life," she says.
You have to pay the high price of signing a garbage contract in which you only get 20% of what you generate with your work, which is a lot
From a family that works in the construction site and a native of the humble neighborhood of Almanjáyar, Maka's life and environment have also marked the most important decisions he has made in his career as an artist.
Like not being related to any record company.
"
You have to pay the high price of signing a garbage contract in which you only take 20% of what you generate with your work, which is a lot
. And I'm not going to go there. I'm self-employed and I'm going to go as far as I want take the air and my effort", sentence.
Although he understands that other colleagues do associate with multinationals, he believes that on many occasions it is due to an immediate search for repercussions.
"This music thing is not just work. Many dreams are linked and there are also ugly things like fame or success. That is why they sign these contracts. But they are very wrong.
They think that they are going to give them a lot of publicity, but it is that you pay for this advertising. And they are not free, they do not do what they want
. To begin with, because they have a boss," he says.
Like him, there are more and more artists who do without the support of a record company and who, despite this, manage to stand out.
What they gain in freedom they lose in exposure in the media, says Maka.
"It is true that I would like to have a little more recognition and visibility," he confesses, "especially because my family saw it. Just as there have been times when they have suffered when one has gone wrong, their setbacks, that now They can feel proud. Also, I think it's positive for my neighborhood. Whenever Almanjáyar appears in the news, it's because of something bad. I understand it because information is a business, but that good things also come out.
That the children there have an illusion and see that there is not only the path of being in prison or not leaving the neighborhood in your entire life "
.
That the children there have an illusion and see that there is not only the path of being imprisoned or not leaving the neighborhood in your entire life
The man from Granada also points out that his passivity towards the music industry explains why his songs do not play on the radio.
"It is rare that they play a song to which they have to make cuts to censor part of its lyrics and not mine. But it is that
the radios are influenced by a series of companies and one has to be in them to sound. It does not matter the kind of music you make
.
Mine is flamenco fusion, something very much ours that others are doing, but those artists are more mainstream because they are in the right places and signing with record labels", he says, but clarifies that in no case does he regret his decision to be an independent artist and that he is proud of the success of his colleagues. "I enjoy people who achieve what they set out to do, not doing so would be a bad person," he affirmed hours before his triumph at WiZink, eight years after his release from prison. A long trip.
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