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From remixing in Madrid to inspiring one of the characters from 'Coco': with you, Camilo Lara, the man who reigns in the shadows in Latin music

2021-04-05T13:55:46.393Z


Camilo Lara is the Mexican Institute of Sound, chosen by EL PAÍS as one of the 50 most influential people in Latin America, as well as a musician and performer. He has collaborated with Norah Jones, Beck, Graham or Beastie Boys, inspired one of the characters in 'Coco', has signed soundtracks for Cuarón and has just released his sixth album, 'D.F'


It is 10 o'clock in Mexico City, and the Zoom screen shows us Camilo Lara, smiling and affable, shaking a large thermos with a drink to wake up, flanked by a large sound table.

Presiding over the back wall are the initials IMS, the same ones that have made it known worldwide as the Mexican Institute of Sound, a hilarious and pompous name behind which only he can be found.

“This is my studio, I come walking every day.

For years I had him in my house, but my wife hated things like going into her dressing room and meeting a group of mariachis, ”he says with a laugh.

Camilo Lara's seems more like the name of, let's say, a bolero singer.

His gracious looks don't fit the ready-made canons of a pop star.

However, this 44-year-old man was chosen by EL PAÍS as one of the 50 most influential people in Latin America.

In addition to being a musician and performer, he is a remixer and producer, and has collaborated with such diverse figures as Norah Jones, Lee Scratch Perry, Beck, Graham Coxon (Blur), Beastie Boys and Run The Jewels.

In addition, he inspired one of the characters in the Pixar animated film

Coco,

participated in the best-selling video game of all time

(Grand Theft Auto V)

and in the soundtracks of numerous television series.

Now, he has just released his sixth album, titled

DF,

electronic pop with Mexican roots that is an excellent excuse to talk about many things.

In 2016, Mexico DF was officially renamed CDMX.

With this title you want to claim something, right?

I have a little dislike for soluble modernity.

Changing the name of the city to pretend to be something else, just as Madonna changed to MDNA, seems absurd to me.

It's like putting on botox.

The city where I grew up was different, and the album talks about that.

Before, this was the city of Roberto Bolaño.

Now you go out, you look for Bolaño in the streets and there is very little left of him, and I no longer tell you about Tenochtitlan.

The one now is not so wild and I like it perhaps more, but it is not my city.

If Bolaño is no longer there, what writers would you say represent CDMX?

I wrote the album thinking about a character named Luis Zapata Quirós, who was the pioneer of gay writers in Mexico.

He made a book called

The Vampire of Colonia Roma,

set in the seventies, and it portrays very well certain things that have passed into modernity.

Today, I could tell you that Brenda Lozano is a great example.

You are also from Colonia Roma, which has become world famous thanks to the film

Roma

, by

Alfonso Cuarón

.

Together with

Alejandro González Iñarritu, they

are two filmmakers on the front lines of Hollywood.

How do you think that has influenced Mexican culture?

I have a long history with Alfonso.

With him I created my first independent label, and the first time I made music for a movie was for

Y tu mama tambien

.

Being a filmmaker in Mexico is probably the most infamous profession, after that of a journalist.

It is dangerous to go out to film, to be robbed ... or not to be financed, because nobody cared about their films.

But they are a good example of what

chilango luchón is,

and they have come out ahead.

The image we have of Mexico is that of drug traffickers, violence, kidnappings, and the only way to change the PH of things is through culture, just as they did in Peru through cooking with Astrid & Gastón, and send positive messages.

Culture is the only thing that is going to change the misfortune we live in this country.

They grew up here in Roma, you saw them on the street, and they did something for their community.

That seems invaluable to me.

Your mother is a specialist in the subject of the disappearance of women.

In what state is all this now?

I don't know, mind you, residing in Mexico City is living in a bubble.

There is other violence here, but you do not experience the war with the narco so closely.

This morning I was hearing on the radio that 35 percent of the national territory is taken by drug traffickers, but here we do not find out.

You, by the way, participated in the soundtrack of the

Narcos

series

,

very popular but also controversial because it considered that it whitewashed violence and made a show of it.

It is a somewhat reduced vision, because the culture of glorification of drug trafficking has already permeated years ago.

In the north of the country we have all the

buchona

fashion

,

a lifestyle of worship of money and weapons.

I wish

Narcos

was the first series to portray that, but, I don't know, it's a good discussion.

Has that culture whitewashed the narco or is it the narco who has promoted that culture?

Camilo Lara inspired a character in 'Coco', a film in which he served as musical advisor.

You have also been part of the documentary series

Break everything.

Why do you think there has been so much debate around it?

I think it has been the most controversial thing I have done in my life.

There were many gangs, lynchings ... people took it very seriously, as if it were a football match or something of religion.

I suppose it is because it is the first documentary made about the history of rock in Latin America.

It also seems that Latin music now has more global impact than ever, right?

That Bad Bunny comes out as the number 1 star at the Grammys means that the epicenter of music is changing.

I never in my life believed that he was going to move away from the Saxon countries, but now he is in Medellín, in Lagos, in Korea ... Places that were never thought to be cultural capitals, and that gives me great enthusiasm, because beyond From the Bad Bunny or the C. Tangana, there is going to be a middle class of global artists who are going to be able to have a strong impact.

Perhaps the former amuse me, but the latter excite me because they are the ones that are going to change the world, and we are going to see it very quickly.

You were the director of EMI in Mexico for many years.

What did being in that position give you?

I entered the music industry because I needed a job, say, food.

The thing is that it went well for me, and I was fortunate that many of the people of my generation were going to do important things, and I had to sign them.

But I also have a little regret that I have been working in the industry for so long.

I was scared to go out to do my thing, and it took me many years.

You also created a group called

Mexrrissey,

where you covered songs by the leader of The Smiths in the Mexican style.

Where do you think the fascination

Morrissey

has had in the Latin world comes from?

Without a doubt there is a melodramatic element, and a relationship with soap operas, because Mexico is not a country of comedy.

Even in Cantinflas there is a lot of Christian guilt.

On the other hand, the greatest idol in our recent pop history is Juan Gabriel, with whom a parallel can be drawn.

Both make fun of life, have a very great ambiguity in their sexuality and are totally radical characters in their thinking and their operations.

I always thought about what Morrissey's songs would be like if he had been born in Mexico, and I realized that the translation could be done to something more mariachi and it made sense.

It was fun.

Hey, we're talking about Mexico all the time but IMS was actually born in Madrid, right

?

Yes, at first I was doing

remixes

for friends.

Carlos Galán, from Subterfuge, asked me for one for his artist Carlo Coupé.

Then the Lovemonk label came to me because they liked it so much, and they said, "Why don't you make one for Gecko Turner?"

Their manager, Señorlobo, suggested that why I didn't send them my own music, I sent him a CD and he told me that he had a lot of work to do, to keep working on it.

I waited two weeks and sent him the same songs, but in a different order, and then he told me: "It's great, we're going to publish it!"

This is how my first album,

México Máxico, came out

in 2006. The first IMS concert was at the Museo Reina Sofía, and I have performed in the city countless times.

In Madrid I am already from the house.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-04-05

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