In the cradle of urban music

The contest promoted byr LA PROVINCIA/DLP and EL DÍA/La Opinion de Tenerife sponsored by the Canarian Institute for Cultural Development of the Government of the Canary Islands and the City Council of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, it has been the first adventure in the urban area for the media, which has come up with three proposals that connect with a new paradigm that is being carried out stand out to the Archipelago within the genre. Yesterday, Saturday’s hangover at the Cayó La Noche Urban Music Festival was witnessed by a hubbub of people chanting the remix and verses by Quevedo, La Pantera, Juseph, Bejo, Cruz Cafuné, Abhir Hathi, El Ima and, also, Daniela Garsal. “I don’t think it’s necessary to leave the Canary Islands to succeed, as the boys who have disgraced the saying ‘one is never a prophet in his own land’ have shown, but I do think that maybe you have more obstacles when it comes to making contacts,” he reflects. Coronet.

Internet and its allies

He is 20 years old, Criado is 28 and Ramírez is 25, in the effervescence of someone who breaks all the imposed chains. This is what bands like Los Canarios, Taburiente, Fritos Keyboards, Los Coquillos, Benito Cabrera’s timple or K-Narias’ salsa with reggaeton did decades before, who did not have discounts for residents and still managed to touch the cusp of the Atlantic. «A friend congratulated me for not having given up and for having believed in me, so I think that an environment has driven me economically and emotionally, I am going to do the work that I am proud of, whatever comes to me and reaches where have to come”, says the lagoon woman who refines the ‘la’ inspired by the production of Cupid and in “that passionate and vehement point” of Silvia Pérez Cruz or Rosalía.

His thing, art, as reviled as it is magnified, supposes the bet that the essayist Nuccio Ordine calls “the utility of the useless” in a world where profit consists only and exclusively in generating money in the system, since humanistic knowledge and aesthetic sensibility can generate “a resistance to the egoisms of the present”, as he emphasizes in his work. Music, a language that, a priori, does not cover the entire compulsory educational stage, is the raison d’être of young people who, on the one hand, study regulated training outside of schools, such as knowledge of piano and violin Criado, who would later study Dramatic Art to be an actress, or fully self-taught, as has happened to Ramírez: «What I have learned has been listening to and consuming a lot of music, which I use to express what I feel, I can be myself in it and say what I really think, without a filter.

The Spanish music industry exceeds the barrier of 400 million euros, 15% more than in 2021 when the slab of the pandemic was still dragging. Revenue places the country in 14th place worldwide, which is why it has dropped compared to 2020 when it ranked ninth, according to data published by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry last March. At an international level, the market is worth 25.9 billion dollars and has chained seven years of growth, to which is added subscription streaming, where the 523 million world users generate around 11,145 million euros. The figures give a certain sense to the maelstrom that the sector is experiencing, which boosts the big brands and the visualizations that, on occasions, overshadow the new talents.

This is how Lionel Coronet feels when he talks to his relatives and recommends a video: «Everything is seen in numbers, if you don’t have them you are worth very little, it hurts to say it but it is the truth. I pass someone a song that I quite like, with three thousand reproductions, and they stop listening to it because they don’t have people behind it, then I pass them another with 10 million and their mentality will change and they will follow it, I say because it has happened to me and I see it in the panorama right now ». The case of the artist Halsey has been commented on in networks because the singer denounces that the record company where she works demands a viral moment on TikTok to release a new single, just as other members of the sector have denounced such as Florence and The Machine and Doja Cat. The commercial strategy makes sense since the Digital Report 2022 of the social network management platform Hootsuite and the creative agency We Are Social reported that nine out of ten people use the networks in Spain for an average of two hours daily. Who would not want to settle in the updates of half the world to try to swell their accounts?

The less friendly face of the business is faced with the possibilities it offers in the ultra-periphery. “I prefer to take it as a challenge and not as an obstacle because, whether you want it or not, it is a challenge to be in the spotlight of people,” Coronet resolves. In this, he coincides with the other two winners: «The most complicated thing is to be constant at the same time that you take care of the aesthetics, the video clips, the photos, and maintain a feed that attracts the attention of the public and they see that you take your content seriously. », details Ramírez after having studied the panorama from within, «combining that activity with releasing music every month is complicated if you do not have a work team and the necessary resources, but it is very important for an artist to have the most professional possible.

«We live in an immediate world of the culture of ‘likes’ with two-second photos that fall and with projects that after a couple of weeks are out of date, but in order not to fall into victimhood you have to keep reinventing yourself and be faithful to one Same because this way of consuming gives us small artists who don’t have a big platform behind the media so that people listen to you anyway, “says Criado. In a scene marked by hypersexualization and the construction of stereotypes, the female artists open the way with or without the rules of the game in the style of Karol G, Bad Gyal, Iggy Azalea, or the Canarian Sofi de la Torre and Ptazeta, «it remains a lot to do, since the great positions of leadership and power are still mostly men, but I think that the fight involves more and more people.

The theoretician and former minister Manuel Castells used to say that public space is constructed as a hybrid between the social networks of the Internet and occupied urban space, so, hanging the verdict of the jury, like the compositions of Lionel Coronet, Silvia Criado and Ángel Ramírez are structured on the YouTube channels and following communicating vessels, they are left to conquer the stage where they will meet acquaintances, curious and unbelieving who have not experienced an unparalleled island musical explosion. “If it wasn’t music, I wouldn’t know what to do with my life… Well, maybe a hairdresser, who knows, once I fought my boss and I wasn’t bad at it,” laughs Coronet on the other end of the phone while the rattle of the bus takes you to your next destination.

Names, curiosities and trajectories of those shortlisted in the weeks prior to the end of the Model Contest:

• Melybi, ‘Coven’. Bibiana González is from Fuerteventura and at the age of 38, she founded the band Guardianes del Templo. She vindicates the feminist fight against sexist violence.
• Raúl Orán, ‘Don’t cry for me’. The 27-year-old from Tenerife currently lives in the Netherlands and alludes to the betrayals experienced in love while promoting his musical project.
• JFran, Raul Rodriguez and Ian Stewart. The 20 and 19-year-old Gran Canarians reflected the reconciliation they experienced after these four years dedicated to the battles of roosters. They keep rapping freestyle.
• Carmen, ‘Let’s go back’. From Tenerife and studying Design, Carmen Edilia was inspired by the summer air and with good rhythms. She traveled to Miami and is looking for contacts to take off in the area.
• Darko Dixit, ‘Your Face’. Yared Urbano Bordón is based on his 33 years of experiences with his “muse” as the introductory voice of the song. Since he was a teenager he composes in the neighborhood of the Feria de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
• Gabriel GR, ‘A long time ago’. Terorense Gabriel Rey García and SrKokis, his sound engineer, based themselves on a beat that reminded the 22-year-old what it was like to miss something that he has never had.
• Galindo, ‘Goldchain’. Daniel Hernández from Teldense used YouTube and its algorithm to find an instrument with which to unleash his inspiration when his hands were empty.
• Fernando García FG, ‘Conjuro’. The author of Tegueste made this song together with Young P, his producer, inspired by “an intense love that this spell caused me”, the basis for continuing in music, his future.
• Javyh, ‘The Call’. Javier Cebolla is 20 years old and lives in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, where he studies Labor Relations. He wrote the lyrics with coronavirus and confinement in between.
• Lucia Rodriguez and Rodrigo Losada. In the 1st year of Baccalaureate and in the 4th year of ESO there is already motivation and a cathartic vision of music. Losada finds a personal search where others do not put themselves before.
• Zavio Vega, ‘Deadly Combo’. At 39 years old, Alejandro Vega Vargas decided to take a pen and a piece of paper and turned his life around.
• Joel Castro, ‘For you’. In Güímar, Joel Castro, at the age of 23, has a family album that has instilled in him a love for music.
• Delpo, ‘Posimba’. Pablo del Pozo Iglesias is inspired by summer and dembow to move the skeleton with a catchy chorus. At the age of 17 he sings for the first time in public in his fringe.
• Sergio Marrero, ‘Solo’. The 36-year-old from Gran Canaria and audiovisual producer is inspired by the events that leave their mark to follow the path.
• Icarus Dimitri, ‘Oraki’. The 24-year-old singer who aspires to become Sharif Canserbero lives with his family and friends in La Aldea.