“From the neighborhood of Añaza to the world playing” is part of the lyrics that J. Ramos interprets in his song Yo soy de barrio and that may be the best summary of what can be seen tomorrow on the stage of the Plaza de la Candelaria , with the Canary Urban Festa meeting framed in the May festivities, in which up to eight artists, almost all from Añaza, will offer a concert in which rap, trap, dembow or reggaeton will be the protagonists. This “chicharrero talent” feeds back through collaborations and performances like tomorrow’s, by artists who, from J. Ramos’ 15 years to Lion Hernández’s 40s, live by and for music.
The Councilor for Fiestas, Alfonso Cabello, defends that what is going to be seen tomorrow is “a commitment to a different format of local talent that is being carried out in Tenerife, in Santa Cruz, and, more specifically, in Añaza”. “It is a project -he continues- where there is a local producer (JRC Music) that has been identifying different talents that, through continuous collaborations, feed each other”. He assures the mayor that “there is a whole musical movement that is taking off in Santa Cruz from the hand of these people, a music that is working very well, even radio formulas are interested.”
That this action is framed within the Fiestas de Mayo, explains Cabello, is due to the fact that “it is necessary that from the City Council we also help to make visible a real and tangible movement of producers who are making music with great success. The proof is that some of the artists have videos that exceed 100,000 views.
J. Ramos is one of those artists who has nearly 100,000 views on YouTube and 140,000 on the Tiktok social network. His real name is Jacobo Ramos and he has four songs published on his YouTube channel. When asked to define what he does, he says that “I’ve been hitting the trap, but I hit everything that comes my way.”
Next to him is T. Álvarez and Marcos Jr. (Nenu Musik), or what is the same, Urban Life, a duo that bets on an urban and tropical style, which has managed to make their work sound on the main radio stations of Canarias, cultivating reggaeton and dembow, but also improvisation (free style).
In the case of Nay Arias, at 27 years old, he says that he started as a rapper, “very underground”, and over time he has been influenced by different genres to “today” do reggaeton, trap, R&B, “but maybe what characterizes me the most is chanting, the most rapped part of a song, that’s my flow”. Lionel Hernández, as he himself says, will give the concert a different tone, “because what I do is Cuban salsa, Latin rhythms”. He has been in this music for many years, although the last six he has remained somewhat on the sidelines. Now, he returns, he assures, “with more force than ever”. His song Bésame has been a success in Spain and has more than a million followers on its streaming. Dj Tosco completes tomorrow’s cast as JRC Music’s official DJ.
They say that they are friends from the neighborhood (Añaza), that they know each other and follow each other through the networks, their main field of promotion. “That is something that the Islands have in particular, that we are all a pineapple, we are very united, without competition and we help each other in everything,” says Lionel.
Their art has emerged “in the neighborhood” meeting on the road and lending support to each other. “There is a lot of talent, there is a lack of industry, visualization, which is what is being worked on now,” they conclude.
Alfonso Cabello acknowledges that it is quite unknown what will happen tomorrow, but he trusts that the younger public will fill the Plaza de la Candelaria to enjoy the talent of these chicharrero artists.
Timples and boleros
The program for this weekend of the May Festivities is completed on Saturday with the musical project @Timples2021, which, starting at 9:30 p.m., in the Plaza de la Candelaria will offer a concert with the participation of Benito Cabrera, Domingo Rodríguez El colorao, Germán López, Altha Páez and Yone Rodríguez.
On Sunday, on the same stage, it will be the turn of the XXVII edition of the Santa Cruz Corazón de Bolero Festival, which will present the Boleros Sinfónicos proposal, in which Luis Villa, Emilio Negrán & Yanira Martín, and the group Alma de bolero will participate.
