Pablo Gil Madrid
Video: Carlos Onetti
Photographs: Antonio Heredia
Madrid
Updated Saturday, March 16, 2024-9:30 p.m.
New song Lyrics and video of 313, the new song by Residente starring Penélope Cruz
Song El beef by Residente against J Balvin in the Bizarrap session
Response to Childish Gambino This is Not America, by Residente and Ibeyi: lyrics and video
Residente
says in his new album: "I want to say goodbye, but I don't want to."
It is not the only reference to a crisis that he has been dragging on for years.
In his songs it has become common to find two antagonistic forces that compete in a difficult balance, especially the pulse between the urgent need for expression and the disgusted rejection of the banality of the circus of music.
A lot of contradictions and paradoxes in permanent tension: the best tool to launch the action of a story.
Have you ever thought about quitting music? Yes, I think about it all the time.
I enjoy thinking about it.
It has given me a lot and I am grateful, but right now I would not like to be related to music or the music industry.
That's why I feel my new album is like a transition, because later I will do something very different.
I like to write, I can sit there writing for a year, but I don't like going on tour, climbing on stage, photos, interviews... All that shit you have to do to sell what you do... The answer is yes, I think all the time that I don't want to make music.
It's half past one in the afternoon and the rapper from Puerto Rico has just finished eating a tomato cream, a small potato omelet and a portion of croquettes for breakfast.
He has lived in New York for more than a decade, but he says that
he loves Madrid
and that he comes often.
"Before I had more connection with
Barcelona
.
It was there where it occurred to me to create Calle 13
after breaking up with a girlfriend I had at University. That must have been in 2003."
In video games you can choose the character you want to be, in the same way that many people coexist within each of us, and some days you feel adventurous, other days you need to put things in order and sometimes you just feel like letting out a few jokes.
René Pérez has been many characters in his two-decade career, generally variations of a
demented hooligan wanting to brawl, party and/or romance
.
We love that character.
We have listened to his songs hundreds of millions of times, we have given him more than 30 Latin Grammy Awards.
He is the Resident, you already know him.
To know more
Music.
Resident has fun with Calle 13
Editorial: PABLO GIL Madrid
Resident has fun with Calle 13
Music.
Resident: "I had a very bad time, I thought I was a hindrance and I got scared, I felt very vulnerable"
Editorial: PABLO GIL Madrid
Resident: "I had a very bad time, I thought I was a hindrance and I got scared, I felt very vulnerable"
But at 46 years old, René feels the need to show his most intimate feelings and his most intense reflections.
He speaks to us with melancholy about
suffering from anxiety and depression
, about feeling nostalgic for a humble childhood,
about loved ones who died and about wanting to die
.
His songs have been a lifesaver for many people, but he couldn't find a way to save his own life.
We didn't know that Resident.
The two Residents, the shameless scoundrel and the confused and sensitive man, are on their
new album
.
It's titled
Lyrics No Longer Matter
, it has 23 songs and lasts more than an hour and a half: it's a literally giant album.
In it there are a lot of themes and styles, many groundbreaking production ideas and up to 16 guests, including Latin urban music stars such as
Bizarrap, Rauw Alejandro, WOS, Christian Nodal, Arcángel or Vico C
, and the Spanish artists
Silvia Pérez Cruz, SFDK and the actress Penélope Cruz
, who recites a text and stars in a dreamlike video directed by the Resident himself at the Palacio de La Granja de San Ildefonso.
Resident, at the Pictura bar at the Mandarin Oriental Ritz Hotel in Madrid.
The Resident that most abounds in the album is the witty brawler, but the most interesting and the one that will probably mark his future is the one who emotionally stripped himself four years ago in the monumental confessional song
René
and which he now extends into other long pieces such as
313
and
Ron on the floor
.
And throughout all the songs and all the Residents there is a theme that connects everything: time.
"Time worries me because I see it go by faster and faster," this torrential rapper slowly explains.
"
In recent years I lost many people that I loved and valued
. Two first cousins who grew up with me all their lives, they were like my brothers, and
they died of overdoses
. On the other hand, I see my son grow up and I see my mother grow old. And I also feel the passage of time within the music industry. That affects me. When I saw all the new
kids
that are coming out, I realized for the first time that I was already in another place, that
my position as an artist had changed.
Before I called and they answered me; now I have to call three times. That happens and you feel it, and it's not because of ego, it's that you realize, bastard, that time is passing and that now is people's time. that it is coming out and that you have to adapt. That is why time is so present on the album," he continues.
"Maybe people become aware of time from the age of 30, but since I have attention deficit I have always realized everything late," he concludes, smiling.
The concern for time is ultimately the concern for death.
Residente shows this especially in
313
, a key song from the album that appears at the beginning, preceded by an audio message left by her friend, the violinist
Valentina Gasparini
, who committed suicide in June 2022.
In
René
you said that, suffering from depression, on one occasion you even thought about suicide, while in a hotel in Mexico before a concert, and in the album you make references again to that 25th floor. Was Valentina taking her own life? doubly painful for you? Yes, yes.
She was a very talented violinist, she played with me several times.
I met her in Paris and she accompanied me during that period when I wrote
René
.
She didn't know I was going through a bad time and she helped me a lot without knowing it.
We had a great time at night and for me she became someone special.
When I found out what happened, imagine, it hurt me a lot, and I was not her best friend, but I remember her with great affection because at a time when I could jump from the 25th floor I ran into her and I didn't.
She became special, like an amulet.
In 313
you make several references to the eight, which is the symbol of infinity, and you talk about starting over and you say "We have to die so that others can live."
It's a song that comes from very deep emotions.Yes.
I wrote the entire text in one night and sent it to Penelope to ask if she could narrate the beginning, and she loved it.
At that time the intro of the song was called
8
and she has a very special relationship with that number, which I didn't know, she has it tattooed on her foot.
Little by little everything began to come together.
It's very strange because I started writing the topic the day the dog I had with my ex-wife and my son died.
It was July 26 and I was here in Madrid.
I felt really sad and, looking at photos of the dog, I started writing about the things I didn't want to end.
A month later I found out about Valentina: she had died on July 26, that same day.
Puerto Rican rapper Residente.ANTONIO HEREDIAMUNDO
The rapper from San Juan was chaining coincidences, many of them related to the number 313. "I didn't understand it. I found the number everywhere.
I started listening to audio messages from Valentina and the last one lasted 3:13
. One day I went to Penelope's house and she had a dog just like Despachorra, ours. And I just thought: "But bastard, how is all this possible?" Originally, I was going to work on this "spiritual" song "written from the soul." " with
Bon Iver
, Bryce Dessner of
The National
and Greg González of
Cigarettes After Sex
, but Valentina's sister, who is also a violinist, insisted that she record with
Silvia Pérez Cruz
. "So there were three of us: René Pérez, Penélope Cruz and Silvia Pérez Cruz.
Everything was falling like that." The series of coincidences culminated in the recording when a sound technician mistakenly called Pérez Cruz Valentina. "Everyone froze
.
" The song reaches its climax with a large violin that grows in intensity played by Valentina Gasparini's sister, Noemí.
In
Ron on the Floor
you say: "This is for everything I can be even if I doubt it, for everything I wanted to be, but couldn't."
What do you mean? Many things, imagine, with all the things that I feel like I couldn't do... I would have liked the relationship with my son's mother to have worked out and for me to be super present all the time, 24 hours, and well I'm not.
I know that I am a good father and now after being here my son comes with me, but I would have liked to be able to live with his mother, but well, I couldn't cope and we separated... I feel that I helped my first cousins a lot that died, but I would have liked to have been able to do more, and I can't say that I wasn't present, but those bastards were crazy (smiles).
Songs with that depth and those lyrical aspirations, an adult rap with piano and a string ensemble and a female choir and not a single beat: that is what Residente imagines for his artistic future.
If he finds an artistic future in which he feels comfortable.
"There is a certain type of song that I connect with so deeply that, since I don't cry, it makes me want to cry when I write
," he explains.
"It happened to me with
Latin America
, with
René
and it has happened to me with
313.
And I try it, I tried it for example with
Respira el momento
from Calle 13 and it's like going out hunting, spending hours and not hunting anything. I really like that song , but it's not even close to the others, it doesn't have that feeling. Because when you do it well, you feel it, bastard, you feel it here. Well, imagine having a complete album in which you get there with all the songs. I have albums that never reached that level."
Under his contradictions and conflicts, Residente confesses himself as a self-confident creator.
He knows that after this album he does not want to make music and that his next project will be to finish
the script that he has been working on for more than four years
and that he co-writes with
Alexander Dinelaris
, who won the Oscar for best original screenplay for
Birdman
.
Later, this rapper, passionate about the history and roots of his country, will seek financing to direct this
epic film
about the moment when Puerto Rico went from being a Spanish territory to an American territory, in 1898. "It is not a good first film for any director because "It's a very big project, but I'm going to put everything into it, it's going to be a real bastard."
And music? I want to make music, but without thinking about wanting to reach a certain audience.
With less stress and less toxic.
I want to make music like when I was in Art School, make art as high as I can, be creative and do it
well
.
That's how I want to make music, try to elevate my artistic and conceptual capacity as much as I can.
And possibly they will kill me in the reviews and say that I believe shit or that I went on a trip, but I want to do it.
I feel that I have never done it, that I have thrown a few strokes like that, but that I can give much more."
His concept of art is clear in his fiercely independent lyrics.
"For me,
art is about constant discomfort
. As soon as you start to feel comfortable and you stay there in that space doing the same thing, you stop making art. You become boring, without investigation or search."
The
Latin Grammy
record holder confesses that he does not usually watch the ceremony.
This year saw the start with Rosalía's performance of
Se nos roto el amor
.
"
I know there are people who criticize her, but I really like Rosalía
, she is a very talented person, and it must be said. I also like C. Tangana, who reminds me of Calle 13 when we went out. But the thing is, I don't know , there is so little happening in music that someone does something normal and stands out a lot, because everything else is so low... That is happening a lot in Latin music, they are adapting to that cliché that the Anglo-Saxon market so much longs: the colors, the palms, the coconuts, the piña colada...".
What will be left of current Latin urban music in 20 years? (Snorts).
The way things are going, bastard, I think everything is becoming simpler and more basic and people are happy with less and less.
Remember Milli Vanilli, who were censored when it was discovered that they were doing
playback
.
Nowadays everyone does
playback
, and even worse, with
Autotune
.
But it's stupid because people now accept it.
The deterioration is getting worse, ever lower.
And that's why the album is titled
The Letters No Longer Matter
, because the lyrics are what matters most to Residente.
The least important thing, of course, is to fit into any mold.
"
I don't belong to hip hop
. Not because of lack of respect, but because I'm not interested, I always wanted to do different things. Within that genre there is a lot of talk about protecting that culture, but in the end it is so overprotected that you don't let it evolve or change. I rap and my tool is rap, my forte is rhyming; if hip hop had more cultural openness it would grow, it would grow branches and I would be one of them. But for that reason I cancel myself before having to get into that conversation."
But don't worry, in the album there is pure and simple rap and there are also the
tiraeras
that he has detonated in recent years, those storms of verbal punches among which one of his most popular songs stands out,
session 49 of Bizarrap
: more than eight minutes in which he skinned the Colombian reggaeton singer
J Balvin
.
"Those songs are writing exercises that I entertain myself with in my free time. It's like playing Tetris. My fans don't like them at all. In the end
I decided to stop and say goodbye to them
with
Baladista
, with Ricky Martin."
Aren't you going to do more
shooting
? No, I'm not interested.
I felt like it at one point, but I don't want to, it's like wasting time.
To make matters worse, when I started searching on Google to see if any news had come out with my name, I saw that there were related photos of all these people that I fucked and that I neither listen to nor care about them, but they are tied to me for a time, so I said it's over. You killed someone. Yes, it wasn't my intention, but oh well (laughs).
In September, Residente begins a small world tour of only 20 concerts
spread over several months
in Barcelona and Madrid .
"Now I know I don't want to play, so I'm going to play in a few cities that are special to me," he explains.
"I want to be calmer and enjoy it, because I already know that
tours take me to a place where I don't want to be
. They take me to that place on the 25th floor where I was when I met Valentina. The place that doesn't interest me."