Carlos Vives: "The success of artists is often not the best example for the new generations"

The singer Carlos Vives returns to the screens in the Disney Plus series 'El Club de los graves', in which he plays the music teacher Amaranto Molina.Mónica González Islas

“Grauaves!

If they are going to play with the pens [pens], we are all going to play”, shouts Amaranto Molina.

He asks a group of his students to strike the quarter notes and another to follow him with the eighth notes.

He asks a student on drums for the rhythmic basis of suco, from African folklore.

One of the young people tells him: "Profe, but that sounds like reggaeton."

To which Molina replies: “Bingo!

Very good".

He grabs the guitar and improvises a tune.

He looks for the clarinetist and asks him to play E minor, G, A major.

The teacher begins to sing like the vegetable vendor he heard on the street: "Avocado, avocado!"

The rest of those present in the classroom join in with answers to the chorus and one of them begins to improvise a rap about the benefits of that fruit, which, at the end of the song,

The above description is a scene from the first episode of

, the most recent children's and adolescent series on Disney+, which has the Colombian singer Carlos Vives (Santa Marta, 61 years old) in the role of Amaranto Molina, a professor of unconventional musician who teaches at a school specializing in music education.

The institution operates according to old rules and disadvantages students who do not meet the standards of commercial success touted by its director, Eduardo Kramer.

Vives was in Mexico City to promote this new production that returns him to a stellar role on television after more than 30 years, when he starred in

(1991), the soap opera about the life and work of the famous vallenato composer Rafael Escalona, ​​whose soundtrack, additionally, they led him to make the album

, which allowed him to become a benchmark for one of the native musical genres of the Caribbean region of Colombia and tour various stages in Latin America and the world .

“It is a story that Disney has prepared inspired by what has been my musical path, the appreciation of the roots to create a new pop, to create modern sounds through the traditional ones;

and the natural struggle that this has within the industry”, Vives tells EL PAÍS, at the Four Seasons hotel on Paseo de Reforma, in the Mexican capital, where he attends the media to promote El Club de los

.

The 10-episode series, available in its entirety from February 22, gives a look at certain aspects of the music industry, such as the standardization to which artists or applicants must submit in order to fit in, aspects with which the Vives's character does not agree, because simply "there are things that cannot be made uniform."

"There are two schools, one that denies

somehow each other's identity, like Kramer's;

and that of Amaranto Molina, to reconcile, to build bridges, to connect with music, with the world and with each one's region, be it Colombia or Mexico, to find happiness and know that it exists", says the Colombian singer .

Within the series there is another group of privileged students,

who think about music from aspects such as fame, the number of followers, aesthetics, visuals, similar to current assessments made to artists in the world. real, based on the number of clicks or reproductions.

Vives, with more than 18 studio albums —between his period of pop, ballads and that of vallenato and genre fusion—, sees that there is an industry that favors certain sounds or types of music through a manual of success that classifies those seeking their place in the industry.

Carlos Vives and the cast of 'El Club de los Graves' in a promotional image.Disney+

“They have to try to be original to try to be famous, that is what Professor Molina proposes to his students.

He begins to value them, to love them from his own stories, while the industry begins to displace them and rather we have to try to understand that music, more than building walls, builds bridges ”, affirms Vives.

The Grammy winner in 2015 for

believes that there is no formula for success and that, on the contrary, getting into a mold or generating certain types of expectations can create false illusions in new musicians.

Vives sees it important that a series like

touches on the topic of guiding and teaching new talents, "what is real in the industry" so that they stop chasing only "the smoke of success and money" .

“You have to create awareness that the artist's work is like everyone else's, it has responsibility and a social function.

Young people have to cultivate, read, study, prepare to be better people.

Do not make up stories that are not real, because, of course, the success of many artists is often not the best example for the new generations”, Vives specifies.

The creator of hits such as

, along with Shakira, or who brought classics from the coffee country, such as

to international stages, is also in charge of the composition and musical production of the series along with Andrés Leal and Martín Velilla.

Thus, songs that are heard during production, such as

, are part of the soundtrack of the series, which includes 12 songs, which is inspired by characters such as Amaranto Molina himself and the students to the rhythm of genres such as

, vallenato, as well as traditional Colombian sounds and rhythms.

“Working on the music for each of the characters was a wonderful exercise, because it had some musical anthropology and was born from the needs of the script and the psychology of each one of them.

There are different genres, of course they will find things from Molina, from his intimacy and the music that comes from the heart, with different nuances and, of course, some accordions that will remind you of those vallenatos by Carlos Vives”, he ends smiling Colombian singer.

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