Eme Malafe, musician: “Mexico has become the neighborhood of the world”

At this very moment, Eme Malafe, rapper, reggaeton player, corrido and salsa singer, seems to inhabit the world touched by the grace of inspiration and certainty, conscious of understanding what previously eluded him.

His speech overflows with grammar and vocabulary: he assumes where he is, what he wants to say and do.

Coming from the humble neighborhoods of the center of Mexico City, his music, rooted in the violence he saw growing up, makes millions vibrate with a deliberately ambiguous message: “I love and hate the neighborhood.”

Malafe is the stage name of Martín Aldana, who turns 30 in March.

A year and a half ago he was shot three times between the neck and left shoulder.

He almost died.

He spent the following months blank, away from the pen and notebook, wrapped in fear and desire for revenge, paranoia.

In the end, he exorcised all that in a nine-minute song that ranges from rap to banda music.

Instead of taking up arms, he took out the verses in retaliation.

The Devil's Dance

has been one of his biggest hits so far.

Have a cappuccino, Malafe, in the shade of a cafeteria in Coyoacán.

The talk constantly surrounds that certainty that invades him, the idea that the artistic representation of violence is a vehicle for fantasy and exorcism, not a stimulus to turn generations of young people into drug traffickers.

“I always say it, you see any guy driving his car, listening to a corrido and, at that moment, he feels like a narco.

He is the one who traffics kilos and sings it!

He gives you dirty looks on the street again, haha.

But he finishes the role and life goes on, he has to get to work and support his family,” he argues.

It is the controversy of the season in Mexico and in a good part of the Hispanic world interested in music and cultural expressions: how acceptable are lyrics like those sung by Malafe or Peso Pluma, filled with stories of armed men who are going to kill other armed men?

For Malafe, criticism is pure ignorance.

For example, a phrase from another of his hits,

Ah Nací

: “Music has always been that, a cry from a lot of people.”

The talk lasts just over two hours, fifteen pages of transcription.

The following is a discretionary summary of what was shared, surprising, at times, illuminating most of the time, as when he says that “Mexico has become the neighborhood of the world.”

An infection due to a dead dog and a blow to a friend due to ill-gotten motorcycles move the wings of the butterfly of destiny.

Everything that happens after is history.

Eme Malafe tells it.

Ask.

You recently graduated as a lawyer.

Answer.

Well, she's been around for a while now, like four years old.

Q.

How did you decide to study Law?

A.

When I didn't know what to study... I wanted to study Medicine.

I wanted to be a surgeon, I really sucked at plastic surgery.

My boss was going to clean a house, where they had a fucking big screen... I was still in a tizzy, she took me with her and I remember that these Discovery Channel programs came on, about surgeries, and it really sucked me to see that.

He sucked me!

It drove me crazy.

But everything was worth a damn in high school, it started to go very badly for me, I got into trouble.

So, when I left high school and asked for medicine, they didn't give it to me.

They sent me to the Veterinary Clinic.

Q.

No, it is not the same

R.

Haha, no, not at all.

So I really went on a rampage there to the Veterinary Clinic.

Q.

How long did you last there?

A.

About three, four months... And damn, it gives me a really bad infection.

Of course, we all started to gain a lot of confidence.

There, in Cuautitlán Izcalli, where I was a veterinarian, there was a dog crematorium.

And once we were there, they sent us for our dog.

Q.

To dissect, anatomy class and so on?

A.

Yes, yes.

Then you would choose your dead dog, you would give the guy at the crematoriums a little smack so he would give you a cool dog, because a small one isn't much use, nor is an old one.

You have to have a big, new one.

Then, little by little, as you went, you gained confidence.

We already ate there in the laboratory.

The dog was open there on the table and you with your sandwich, dude.

And damn, I got a really bad infection.

All this filled me with balls [referring to the lips].

I lost a lot of weight, I couldn't eat, I stopped going to school... And I didn't go again.

Q.

But, did you know what the infection was about?

A.

No, well a bug.

Q.

A dead dog bug.

R.

Haha, yes, like that.

Q.

And then you left school.

A.

Yes, then it was, 'damn, what am I going to do with my life?', because at the same time I was doing pure blowjobs, things that I shouldn't have.

Q.

Like what?

R.

He was acting like a fool, he was acting like a bastard there in the street.

Crimes, making money... And, yes, at that time they arrested one of my friends and killed another.

And he fell on me on the 20th.

Eme Malafe suffered from the illness, although the street kept him back.

Also the classrooms.

She left Veterinary School and entered Law School, at the Faculty of Higher Studies of Aragon, part of the UNAM.

She ended up graduating, then studied a diploma in Criminal Law and Oral Trials and later, already at the university headquarters, a specialty in Business Law.

But before all this, his “blowjobs” sent him into exile for a while.

A.

When I entered university, I met a girl whose father had an advertising company, these billboard tubes.

I told him that if any job came up that he should talk to me.

And she pulled me.

And in one of those jobs I realized that they had a machine, that they put it in the tube and it recorded the entire license number, the permit and so on.

They gave him a little tag and a thousand blowjobs.

When I saw that machine, I said, 'don't suck.'

I had already done that stupid thing about stealing motorcycles before, but when I saw that, the wolf of Wall Street moment arrived.

Q.

Let's explain to me, what did you understand?

A.

When we were involved in motorcycles, you knew that many who bought them were to bend them, change the serial number.

But we didn't do that, we just took them.

So when I saw that machine… I knew that those who dubbed used acid or something like that.

But with that machine, I said, 'we turn the industry around.'

[This machine would allow them to manufacture plates identical to the official ones with false serial numbers].

The machine cost about 250,000 pesos.

Obviously, we didn't have them, but when we set the goal that we have to achieve them, well, you can imagine.

Going out to do stupid things almost daily, until we get it together.

We ordered it and my life completely changed.

Instead of taking the subway to the university, he arrived in a Volvo.

Q.

And you, did you continue to steal the motorcycles or did you just use the machine?

R.

The little machine.

It was a combination of the street and the school.

And our life in two or three months was like... Suddenly, I don't know, I had 600,000 or 700,000 pesos at home.

And he said, 'Damn, damn, I own the fucking world!

But around the seventh or eighth semester, everything went to hell.

Obviously, there were already investigations, there were many motorcycles that we folded.

There was a lot of varo that we had generated.

Q.

They had a company.

A.

We had someone for the bills, another one folding everything, two who brought us the motorcycles [they stopped stealing, but hired people who did it for them].

And we started making noise.

Q.

In the end they caught you.

A.

There you go.

These two guys [those who were stealing] went out to get something [motorcycles] and they started chasing them [police].

In this mess, this guy, instead of giving up, takes out his gun and starts shooting at the police.

The police shoot him and kill him.

The other one escapes, but they catch him after about two, three days.

So when they grabbed him it was like, 'Damn, damn, something's not right.'

I started to feel bad, bastard.

And just, my other carnal was in the morning and damn, an operation fell there in the canton [his office].

There were the motorcycles, the machines, the computer... And it was like that, dick, dick, dick!

That day he was at university and he was very psychotic.

That night I told my girl, 'Hey, let's go to hell, I'll pick you up, grab what you can and let's go.'

And he said, 'go.'

We went to live in Playa del Carmen.

I brought the wool and we lived for a year.

Just before leaving, Malafe had recorded his first song.

The love affair with writing had begun years before, in high school, a quiet, hidden taste, a closet taste.

Later he will say that when a cousin of his told him that he was homosexual and told him about his experience, he felt identified.

But anyway, the recorded song,

To run we were born

, shared with two or three colleagues before his forced exile, surprised him upon his return.

R.

It was one of those cathartic moments in your life, brother.

I remember that we were entering back into the city, we were going through La Merced, the market of Sonora.

I turn around and I hear that in a stall they are playing my song, on the pirate records.

And me, no mamas, that's my song, it's playing, damn, how fucking crazy!

And later, at the Sonora, another little record stand and the same thing.

And me, no moms, what's happening!

Q.

From that time, I suppose, another song of yours,

Mi barrio

, is also one of the most listened to.

A.

Ah, yes, that song did really well.

Q.

You have a phrase that I like: “What do you want me to talk about if this is what you live every day, chingao?”

A.

It's just funny now... Seeing to what extent what we did then has reached.

When we left there was a lot of repression, my music was criticized like hell.

For example, the one about

We were born

went viral because she was on the news.

That helped her, but they spoke badly about her, because they said, 'it's not like these guys spray fire extinguishers, they rob gas stations.'

So it was criticism after criticism, after criticism.

Everywhere we went, they made us look ugly.

They really didn't see us as cool.

Then I did a song called

Criminal

, which brought even more farts, death threats, really crazy things.

He was a bastard, they saw us badly and I understand it.

Because we were talking from the point of view of, 'we are proud of who we are.'

And it was worth it to me, if I have to run with the consequences, let them run, I'm the one who's going to pay for it, to hell with it.

This was our speech.

The police didn't like us at all.

They would stop me and if they knew who I was they would embarrass me.

Q.

How curious.

That deal begins when I had finished that business of yours with the folded motorcycles.

R.

Exactly, when I was starting to dedicate myself to something cool.

And you feel something... Have you seen this scene of a guy who has this fight with God, of 'hey, why did you send me this?'

Well, why, right now, when I'm doing cool things, do I get so into trouble, and threats, and shame from the police?

I'm not doing anything wrong, but it's the only thing I know how to talk about.

Q.

There is another song, later, called

Who

.

The video just begins with a section of the main Televisa newscast, talking about a call for a motorcycle ride that you did... And it seems that the song is a response.

There is a part where you sing: “Malafe is coming, my whole band, my evil people.”

R.

Do you know what was happening at that time?

We realized the power of being proud of where we came from... We had always felt less than and now we went out and showed off the place we had hidden.

In high school, in college, when they asked me where I was from, I always said somewhere else.

Because when something was lost, if they knew where you were from, then they would see you again.

So, this change comes of, 'hey gang, feel very proud, we grew up here, how bad we are is an education that not everyone has the privilege of having.

You are from the neighborhood and that is not less, it is more, it is being more attached, throwing more eggs into it.'

And exactly, my evil band.

All my audience, well, I don't want to generalize, but the majority are people who have done something bad, or have had something done to them, or have a family member who...

Q.

The violence around.

A. Uh

-huh.

Well, we are in Mexico City!

It's what you live.

Q.

In this other song of yours,

Ah I was born

, you have this phrase: “Music has always been that, a cry from a lot of people.”

R.

Yes, I said, screw it, I'm not going to stop talking about those topics.

A 13 or 14 year old boy who has that feeling of 'guy dick, my boss earns 400 varos a week and I get 2,000 or 3,000 with a robbery.

To cock'.

One of those guys, when he hears these songs, he is motivated to say, 'yes, I'm going out and, furthermore, I feel proud of this fart.

And, while I sing it, while I sing all this, I take it out.'

Q.

How to exorcise rage.

A. Uh

-huh.

So cool.

Like the last shoot we had.

120,000 motorcycles gathered between Eje Central and Axis 3 and there was not a single incident.

Not one.

[This meeting occurred in July of last year].

And evil band, as we said a while ago.

Not a fucking incident.

A catharsis, because we took it all out, to hell with it, we shouted it, we felt like criminals at that moment, we were the villains of the story.

We get it out there and let's get on with life.

Q.

Next comes the collaboration with C-Kan.

And precisely I notice a more reflective tone, more of looking back.

In that sense and in others, it reminds me of the one Residente released, René, in which he tells about his life, his childhood...

R.

Where he cries.

In the video he cries.

He walks onto the baseball field and cries.

Q.

Yes, that one.

A.

Yes... I already realized that behind all this pride that I tell you about there was pain.

You show pride in the neighborhood, but if you really go to what you're feeling, to the core, you're going to get pooped.

Always strong, always proud, but who do you tell how shitty you are that they will yell at your mother?

Who do you tell that you have a fucking grudge against the guys in the white van that took the stall holders?

Those are the ones you keep and you can't take them out.

Q.

You can't show weakness.

R.

You take it out as anger, but inside it is pain.

A chalet pain, why do I have to live here?

Q.

Maybe that's why the collaboration with C-Kan is important: it's the first time you allow yourself to talk like that.

A.

Yes, everything has been a process.

The same mind is changing.

In that song there is a phrase that says, 'I love and hate the neighborhood, maybe no one understands it.'

And that's it.

I really love the cultural, folkloric part, that carnalism with the morrillos in the street, who are all filthy, but then someone's mother invites you to a taquito, that carnalism that exists until you are 10 or 12, which then is lost to cock.

Because from there forward it is always wanting to return to that loyalty, to return to what no longer exists.

Q.

You also say in that song: “Wherever I go I always carry the neighborhood with me, but the neighborhood also eats you.”

A.

It's that dichotomy, going through a place where you know it can hurt you.

You bring a lot of experiences from there, I thank life for putting me there, because that's why I can write, but it's also bad, why did I have to see that, why did they have to kill someone?... You grow up with some mental deficiencies very stupid, having to swallow things.

Of having to hide what you write from your supporter, something so normal.

Yes, that song captures it very well: I'm proud, but it's also really cool.

People see your present and think that you have always been like this.

But not.

There was this friend, who was the son of the guy who had a small business [selling drugs] there in the neighborhood.

So he was the first to bring good tennis shoes, he was well dressed, the first to have a scooter... But they killed his father and everything started to go to hell.

The last time I saw him... Damn it, the guy was street, street, he doesn't even recognize you, with one of those patches of dirt under his eyes, I think his brother was in prison...

What becomes so stupid is that, how many centimeters away was I from my life ending like this?

How far was I?

At some point something happened, the road divided.

Because we had the same childhood, we went to the same schools, we stole at the same ages... There are times when I don't understand when I got here.

When they shot me, man, I really had the feeling of... I have this dream a lot that I think I've already died.

I'm awake, there, in my chair, and I'm left thinking, 'damn, maybe I did die and this is the cool part, what I would have wanted to live.'

You can't quite believe that something bad is happening to you, because you are used to bad things happening to you.

Q.

When they attacked you, what did you feel?

[The attack was in May 2022, in his neighborhood, the Morelos neighborhood.

Malafe narrates his entire subsequent mental struggle in

The Devil's Dance

].

R.

Well, it feels fucking embarrassing, right?

Ha ha.

Q.

And when did the fear arrive?

A.

No... It was one of the most disgusting processes of my life.

About three, four days later, I asked for a psychologist to accompany me.

He was only supposed to come two or three times, and I said no, we would pay, but let it be daily.

A very horrible fear.

He would wake me up and say, 'no, I think they're killing my mom.'

Very crazy.

The physical fart went away quickly, but what remains in your head... It has been a cool learning process with the psychologist, who has helped me a lot to go through it, but the thorn of fear, anger, those mental wounds remain.

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