Becky G: "Men are shocked and uncomfortable when they hear me sing about sex"

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Los Angeles, 1997. He is 24 years old, but he expresses himself in

torrential

with the clarity of ideas of someone much older.

"I have lived through everything, I feel old," laughs one of the great stars of Latin urban music.

'Fulanito' has 220 million views in a month between YouTube and Spotify. 'Without pajamas' and 'Seniors' exceed 2,500 million. Rebecca Marie, this has gotten out of hand. If I think about it, it's fucking crazy, so I don't think about it. I have learned to relativize: numbers are numbers and nothing else. Obviously, as an artist, that support from the fans is very important and I feel very grateful, but for my sake it is important not to continually compare what I do with what I did.

is

, it is possible that it will never have another success like this or as

. I notice that with experience I have learned to handle this, because before it affected me a lot every time I put out a new song. It was a tremendous pressure. Do you have any normal life left? I have never been a normal person. In my life. Before he was a professional artist, he was no longer a professional artist. She was obsessed with music and with entertaining people. How I expressed myself, my way of dressing at school, putting on makeup from a very young age ... many told me that this was not normal. Well, very well, perfect, I have accepted it and I like it. There is nothing wrong with not being like everyone else and I show it because there are many young people who feel weird and are made to feel bad by society about it. I tell them that being different is something beautiful, that I am and I feel proud. Do you feel a responsibility to be an example? Yes,but I don't want to be a good example but a real example. Be authentic, because being perfect is not real. I have a great platform and I want to use it in a positive way, but I have learned from the controversy with the lyrics of some of my songs, such as

or

, that my responsibility is towards myself and not towards what people say. Too many people have told me: "Your lyrics are so bad, now I can't put Becky G's music in my house in front of my children." Look, I'm not the mother of other people's children, so don't put that responsibility on me, educating them is your job. It bothers me especially that they tell me that my lyrics are inadequate, but they put Maluma, Enrique Iglesias, Ozuna ... All the top male artists can openly sing about sex, but now that Becky G sings daring lyrics it is a problem . As a woman I learned that my responsibility is to myself, because I live with Becky 24 hours a day and this is only going to make sense if I am happy with what I do, whatever the rest think.Is it still shocking that a woman talks openly about sex? Yes, men are shocked and uncomfortable when they listen to me. Many, at least. For a long time women tried to pigeonhole us in a box: you can be a mother, a wife, a cleaner and nothing else. I'm going to be all those things and more. Why can't I be and do whatever I want? Fortunately, my parents never treated their sons and daughters differently: "What your brothers do, you can also do." We did not have gender roles in our house: I did sports, I used to make up my brothers like clowns and everyone was happy. I am very grateful to my parents.How does the meaning of the themes and the aesthetics that have earned reggaeton the label of macho change when a woman uses them? When it is the woman who decides what she sings in a song or how she moves and dresses in a video , the meaning completely changes and machismo disappears. What is macho, if the artist is a man, ceases to be. When i recorded

I decided on the concept of the video and also recorded it with Natty Natasha, although they didn't want me to do the song with another artist because they didn't understand why I was going to share a hit that I could have for myself. When the song became a hit, a man in the industry told me, "That video worked so well because you two were so hot in your underwear and it was a very sexy video, the next video has to be even sexier." How? My body is not sexy, I am sexy and nobody is going to tell me how to demonstrate and express my sexuality. If I am here without making up with my sweatshirt and my hair in a ponytail, but I feel sexy, I assure you that I will be sexy for you. So my next video had nothing to do with it. And that's the difference: I decide when I'm going to go to that most sexual place, and then it's okay.The problem is when the woman does not have the right to decide and a man forces her to appear in lingerie in a video. I control my message. Is the music industry sexist? Yes, like all cultures. I am Mexican-American and in both my cultures I notice it, but when I went from singing in English to singing in Spanish, it was a shock. I thought, "Wow, we're still here." Why did you notice it more when you switched to Spanish? Because Latin music has more of that vibe. At that moment,Why did you notice it more when you switched to Spanish? Because Latin music has more that vibe. At that moment,Why did you notice it more when you switched to Spanish? Because Latin music has more that vibe. At that moment,

became my first hit and I was excited. I went to do my first interview on the radio and the presenter told me: "My daughter can't listen to your music." And there I realized what there was. I had heard a thousand interviews with colleagues in Latin music, from J Balvin to Daddy Yankee, and they were never asked about their daring lyrics or with double meanings. At the same time that

came out

and they were offended because I said "don't fit in my mouth", Enrique Iglesias and Ozuna sang "I want to eat you, you're going to love it" and "only in your mouth I want to finish." They were playing those songs in all countries, at all parties, on all radios and they came to reproach me that they could not play my song because they felt uncomfortable. As a woman I am very sad that this happens, but it is also a motivation. It is to send the message that I am a woman and now it is my turn to talk about what I want to do in sex and it is your turn to listen the same as you listen to men. I got tired of defending myself and having to explain myself by a verse. They would also ask you a thousand times what your mother thinks when she listens to you. Or worse, your grandmother. (Laughs) Yes, yes, all the time.And I told them that my parents were delighted and surprised. My grandparents, obviously, were older and from a different time. At the age of five or six, I would imitate those super sexy music videos of Shakira, Jennifer López or Beyoncé dancing and my grandmother would sometimes get violent. And my mom would tell her: "She doesn't even know what she's saying, but look how happy she is. When the time comes when she asks me what these songs mean, as a mother I'll explain what it is, but now let her have fun. without any evil ". This is how I am going to be, as a mother too. From what I see, you are a case of manual of "mom, I want to be an artist". Yes, although I am still super young and things can change. I still haven't found the reason why Becky is the way Becky is,but I think it has a lot to do with my childhood circumstances, being the oldest of four brothers and the daughter of two very young people. My parents were

having

. In therapy I learned that instead of having a mother and father, I had an older brother and sister. We grew up together and I had to learn many things on my own, not because my parents didn't love me, but because they were also learning at the same time. I think that is why I have always had a strong feeling for myself, I have taken life's difficulties naturally and I have done what it takes to move on. That's why I started working at the age of nine to help my family and I don't think I'm special. I am not the first: my grandmother started at seven years old and my grandfather, with 10. It is something normal in our family and our culture. Did you have difficulties as a child? Of course. That is why I started acting, singing and presenting wherever I was given the opportunity. We lost our homewe had to live in a garage and I wanted to get out of that situation we were experiencing. It was a very difficult time, but it was also revealing for me: "Very well, if we have nothing, I cannot lose anything, so we are going to chase every dream no matter how crazy it may seem." When you look back now, do you know twice as much? Sweet? Many people tell me that at only 24 years old I have experienced more things than most in a lifetime. And it's true, it's crazy to think about it. It is something that I think I have not processed yet. Many people see a young, successful and talented girl, but I still feel like I can lose all of this tomorrow because I know what it's like to lose everything. It's something that helps me a lot, but it also affects me a lot. It shows that things are not so safe and I cannot trust myself, I know that bad things are going to happen to me, although now it seems impossible.It's life, it's okay to be like that, but it doesn't allow me to relax. Every time I have an interview, every time I have an opportunity to introduce myself, it's like the first. What was it like growing up as a Latina in Los Angeles? I suffered a lot of racism, but I think it affected me more than I grew up with a permanent identity crisis, because I was born in the United States and I was Mexican there, but when I went to Mexico to visit my cousins, I was American. So where do I stay? They don't accept me here or there, so who am I? I am 100% proud of Los Angeles and also 100% proud of being Mexican, of the history of my last name, of how my story began before I was born with my grandparents crossing to the United States and everything they sacrificed to give us a future. I am very connected to my roots, but I always felt like I didn't belong anywhere.Were you a happy girl? In my house and in my world, yes, but outside it was difficult. I suffered a

very strong. As I told you before, I was not a normal girl, I loved to wear very strange clothes, to go to school with makeup at the age of nine, the race ... When I think about that now I think that, simply, the other children did not understand me because we were at different stages in our lives. I already felt like a very little woman, a very old woman. I don't know why, but at the age of nine I already felt that I had lived a lot. Do you look to the future? Getting old in urban music is complicated. As a child, I thought a lot about the future and it gave me a lot of anxiety because I was always looking to feel the security that I never had. But now I've learned that safety is never real, that this can all end tomorrow and I'm still going to need to learn how to cope. I am trying to focus on living each day and it is working. For instance,This trip to Madrid is special. Why? Because in these years I have seen the hotels in all the cities of the world, but I have hardly been in the streets, in the discos and in the restaurants. However, Madrid changed my life, because on my previous visit I decided that this time I wanted to go out, walk, know ... And since it was a moment in my career when everything was exploding, I was able to do it without it being crazy. I went out to clubs, listened to music, enjoyed being here. And this time I have brought my little sister Estefanía, who had never traveled outside the United States, to show her the city and to enjoy a little, for once, the privileges of this new life that we had not even dreamed of without the fear of losing it. suddenly.but I have hardly been in the streets, in the discotheques and in the restaurants. However, Madrid changed my life, because on my previous visit I decided that this time I wanted to go out, walk, know ... And since it was a moment in my career when everything was exploding, I was able to do it without it being crazy. I went out to clubs, listened to music, enjoyed being here. And this time I have brought my little sister Estefanía, who had never traveled outside the United States, to show her the city and to enjoy a little, for once, the privileges of this new life that we had not even dreamed of without the fear of losing it. suddenly.but I have hardly been in the streets, in the discotheques and in the restaurants. However, Madrid changed my life, because on my previous visit I decided that this time I wanted to go out, walk, know ... And since it was a moment in my career when everything was exploding, I was able to do it without it being crazy. I went out to clubs, listened to music, enjoyed being here. And this time I have brought my little sister Estefanía, who had never traveled outside the United States, to show her the city and to enjoy a little, for once, the privileges of this new life that we had not even dreamed of without the fear of losing it. suddenly.And since it was a moment in my career when everything was exploding, I was able to do it without it being crazy. I went out to clubs, listened to music, enjoyed being here. And this time I have brought my little sister Estefanía, who had never traveled outside the United States, to show her the city and that we enjoy a little, for once, the privileges of this new life that we had not even dreamed of without the fear of losing it. suddenly.And since it was a moment in my career when everything was exploding, I was able to do it without it being crazy. I went out to clubs, listened to music, enjoyed being here. And this time I have brought my little sister Estefanía, who had never traveled outside the United States, to show her the city and that we enjoy a little, for once, the privileges of this new life that we had not even dreamed of without the fear of losing it. suddenly.

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