Julieta Venegas has composed hundreds of songs, but ‘Norteña’ (Almadía), her first book dedicated to her memories in the border city of Tijuana (Mexico), is her “longest and most rigorous” work, one that she thought she “would not be able to finish,” as she told EFE Thursday that literature “requires more time” than music.
Before the publication of the text, Venegas (California, 1970) had already written dozens of diaries and even an essay in which she explored her relationship with literature, her second great passion, but no story caught her as much as the memory of Tijuana, the city where she grew up and which is “altered in series and headlines” due to its migratory context and proximity to the United States.
Transformed his childhood memories
“The idea of doing a memoir came and went, but it never held interest that long.”
“I preferred to make another record, but when I made ‘Tiempos dorados’ with David (Aguilar) images of my childhood came to me and I said: ‘Here is my memory’.”
Julieta Venegas talked about the first single from her most recent musical project, also titled ‘Norteña’ (Altafonte), which she released this Thursday.
For three years, Venegas mixed the two worlds – literature and music – to return to her roots marked by the memory of her debut album, ‘Aquí’ (1997).
And for his family, from whom he inherited his melomania and whom he missed when he moved to Mexico City to pursue his musical career in the 1990s.
“Sometimes doing a path that is not so common or not the expected path can be difficult, but it’s also cool (good).”
The Grammy winner, for whom this project was a way to “emancipate” herself from the insecurities that the industry places on women who write and make music, emphasized that the project was a way to “emancipate” herself from the insecurities that the industry places on women who write and make music.
Feeling “on the sidelines
In the book “Norteña”, Julieta Venegas tells what it was like to “jump the pond” and move to the Mexican capital.
He got close to the members of Café Tacvba, the Argentine producer Gustavo Santaolalla, and even ventured into the world of cinema with the director Francisco Franco.
Despite this, the distance between her and her homeland has always given her “the uncomfortable feeling” of being “on the sidelines”.
“When I lived in Mexico City – and during the eight years I spent in Argentina – I never felt: ‘I’m from here’, as if to say: ‘I’m here, but I’m not from here'”.
“It is precarious to live with the feeling that you are going to leave at any moment,” he confessed, recognizing that the Latin American population is going through the same malaise.
Reflects on uncertainty in Latin America
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I preferred making another album
Julieta Venegas
And he recalls that episode in which he lived in Buenos Aires, together with his daughter, Simona, and they told him: “you arrive at the worst moment and you leave at the worst”.
“In Latin America it always seems to be the worst time, it’s a jumble of fears and uncertainties, we don’t have the stability that other countries have.”
“We don’t even have a chance to grow old peacefully,” he admitted.
Julieta Venegas insists that ‘Norteña. Memorias del comienzo’ is not an autobiography, “I’m not even a nostalgic person”.
An intimate journey between music and memory
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Rather, it is the result of his attraction to the literary subgenre of memoir, which is so lacking in “such a superficial age” in which “individual stories matter little.”
Like the one of her growing up hugging a piano and her family a few meters from the U.S. border.
“Neither (newspaper) headlines nor series or movies can explain the complexity of Tijuana, where there are also people like me: growing up and growing up,” he added.
The heart of ‘Norteña’ is divided in two, the literary one that “with a lot of therapy” Julieta Venegas managed to go through.
And the musical, that journey that the singer-songwriter knows well and that in this 12-track album she shares with Natalia Lafourcade, Yahritza Y Su Esencia, Bronco and more talent specialized in regional Mexican music.
With information from EFE
For more information, visit QuéOnnda.com
