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Shortly after this buddy Valentina Gasparini handed away, Residente started seeing the quantity “313” all over the place.
He’d been in a lodge, listening to one in every of Gasparini’s previous voicemails, when a piano began enjoying a haunting melody beneath him. He regarded up on the clock: 3:13. Then he started clicking by means of audio notes Gasparini had left him — she’d been an achieved violinist and so they’d collaborated on numerous music collectively. The final one she’d despatched him had been at 3:13 pm He’d responded with a message that was 3:13 minutes. There have been different coincidences, some too private and peculiar for him to say now, however the quantity instantly appeared to imply one thing larger.
“I have a tendency to not consider in issues which can be very non secular or magical in that sense. I am a ‘realist,’” he tells Rolling Stone, lifting his palms as much as make finger quotes. “With all the pieces that occurs to me, there’s a proof. However with this, it was the alternative of all the pieces I consider in. That quantity began popping up lots for a very long time.”
The reminiscence of Gasparini, and the alchemical vitality that he felt surrounded by this magic quantity, took him on what he describes as “a private journey” to put in writing “313.” The track is a swelling, orchestral ode to the cycles of life and a name to stay within the current. It was with this track that Residente introduced his long-awaited second solo album Las Letras Ya No Importan, out at the moment. The album is Residente’s first in six years, following his self-titled LP from 2017, made after he stepped away from the influential alt-rap/reggaeton group Calle 13 together with his siblings.
Las Letras Ya No Importan has been delayed a couple of occasions. He pushed it again once more final December, saying in an Instagram video that he did not really feel proper releasing music amid a lot violence. “I do not really feel nicely. It hurts an excessive amount of. I take into consideration my son day-after-day. I am unable to be detached to this,” he shared on the time.
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The ultimate product is made up of 23 tracks, and it captures a protracted time frame, with some songs which can be virtually 5 years previous. All of it, he says, marks a giant evolution for him as an artist. “I feel this album is a transition into what I wish to begin doing — and maintain doing — with my music,” he says. “I’ve songs which can be from three or 4 years in the past that I placed on right here as a result of I really feel like they’re a part of the method. However a few of these aren’t those I am essentially the most related to in the meanwhile.”
During the last couple of years, Residente has emerged as an business pugilist, prepared to struggle in opposition to the industrial forces that may overpower the music scene. Often, this has was spectacle, because it did when “Bzrp Music Classes, Vol. 49” with Argentine producer Bizarrap got here out. The practically nine-minute freestyle went after Colombian artist J Balvin, who Residente had sparred with up to now. Residente admits now that a number of the consideration surrounding the general public feud and the freestyle took away from his different efforts, together with “This Is Not America,” a heated critique of American capitalism that he launched two weeks later.
“You possibly can have 10 songs and one goes viral, and also you turn out to be this banner determine for that kind of content material,” he says. “‘This Is Not America’ touched on points I have been discussing all through my whole profession and the message was essential to me. That is to not say the track with Biza wasn’t, however ‘This Is Not America’ meant lots to me and in a way, the opposite observe eclipsed the burden of it. ‘This Is Not America’ got here out, however not in the identical method.”
Nonetheless, a number of the concepts from his freestyle — authenticity in music, the divide between actual artists and entertainers — reappear on Las Letras Ya No Importan. “El Malestar En La Cultura” and “Cerebro,” for instance, see Residente rattling out robust, jaw-dropping bars about his expertise and expertise, emcee-style. Quite a lot of songs find yourself as a tribute to old-school rap, with appearances from Busta Rhymes on “Cerebro” and Puerto Rican rap pioneer Vico C teaming up with hip hop legend Large Daddy Kane on “Estilo Libro.” The opposite options run the gamut, from Puerto Rican singer Rauw Alejandro to Mexican star Christian Nodal.
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“I really like all these collaborations,” Residente says. “We made the Busta Rhymes one a number of years in the past, earlier than the pandemic. He known as me up a couple of days in the past once I was having dinner and stated, ‘Our track is popping out!’ So what I really like about this album is that organically, it contains individuals who I recognize, who recognize me, who should be there, and the place there’s this mutual respect.”
Different songs seize a extra introspective facet of the rapper, notably “Rene,” a biographical ballad that examines despair and psychological well being, and “Synthetic Inteligente,” which interrogates the long run and the intersections of know-how and humanity. He is aware of a number of the work could be extra experimental than what persons are used to from him: He admits that there are occasions all through his profession the place he needed to meet followers within the center and make music that appealed to broader crowds. Nowadays, he is been leaning into work that he sees as extra significant. “Now I wish to simply say, ‘to hell with it,’ and maintain going so far as artwork can take me, with out being conceited or selfish,” he explains. “I wish to maintain doing that on numerous completely different ranges.”
He is launched himself additional into new creative ventures, together with a starring position in Alessandra Lacorazza’s debut movie Within the Summers, which received this yr’s US Grand Prize at Sundance. Critics hailed his efficiency as “distinctive” and “dynamite,” though Residente claims he did not know the way massive his position was going to be at first. “I did not know I used to be the principle actor till I noticed the film,” he chuckles.
He is additionally engaged on a brand new script alongside Birdman screenwriter Alexander Dinelaris; after we talk about Zoom in February, Residente is at dwelling, ready for Dinelaris to reach to allow them to put the ending touches on Puerto Rico, a movie concerning the lifetime of the Puerto Rican revolutionary José Maldonado Román. He is inquisitive about doing extra on the movie facet, and sees extra appearing sooner or later.
“With appearing, you are not so susceptible to different folks. Nor an artist you might be, or not less than, I’m. I am constantly placing actual, private issues about myself on the forefront. And if you need, that is exhausting. It is exhausting to work on songs which can be emotional, to put in writing them. It is intense psychological work. And it is tiring to reveal your self a lot. It is one thing that may drain you,” he explains. “In appearing, I really feel protected to a sure extent by the position and the character. It is not me, it is a character. You possibly can join with the position and you may really feel issues, however folks know you are appearing. The character catches all of the bullets for you, on the finish of the day.”
He is been near the movie world for a very long time. Most of his movies have turn out to be visually pushed epics: “This Is Not America” received the Grand Prix for Music Video Excellence on the Cannes Lions Competition in 2022. Different latest movies, together with “Quiero Ser Baladista,” starring Ricky Martin; “Ron En El Piso;” and “Problema Cabron” have cinematic ambitions, enjoying out like spectacular mini motion pictures with featured solid members and scripted scenes For “313,” he turned to his rolodex of pals in movie and requested Oscar-winning actress Penelope Cruz to learn the opening strains of the track. Finally, she additionally took a lead position within the video.
“A buddy launched us and invited us to a home, the place I met her sons and I came upon they like my music. We related from there,” Residente remembers of their first encounter. “Once I was considering of voices to do the narration a part of the track, I believed of some folks, together with her, and I despatched it to her to see what she’d say. I believed she was going to say no. However as an alternative, she appreciated the thought and appreciated what I wrote, and she or he additionally had a connection to the numbers within the track.”
“313” begins the LP on an emotional observe. One other highly effective second comes later, on “Bajo los Escombros,” a politically pushed credo that options vocals from the Palestinian artist Amal Murkus.
“She has a spectacular voice and I labored together with her whereas she was in Palestine — she’s nonetheless there — and I additionally collaborated with a bunch of Palestinian artists in New York and musicians in Gaza. Whereas they had been bombing Gaza, they had been recording and sending the music, which is loopy, and it grew to become part of the album,” Residente says.
On-line, Residente has continued talking up concerning the disaster in Gaza, continually sharing information and headlines concerning the area. (Some criticism has surfaced a few Calle 13 line from 2005 about “exploding like Palestine.”) Residente says he sees it as a part of his job to face up and share points that he feels strongly about as an artist.
“It is essential to me, and I see it as a part of an artist’s job to replicate again what impacts him and to not be detached to what occurs. We will not be detached to those atrocities taking place on the planet. What’s taking place in Gaza is horrible, and there are such a lot of individuals who do not perceive, particularly within the US. It is loopy the best way we’re trying on the genocide of 1000’s of kids and moms and dads. I do not know how one can justify it,” he says. “There’s a lot of, ‘They began it.’ And naturally, nobody is saying what occurred is true. However now they’re killing kids in your face… Me, as an artist, I specific myself about all of that as a result of it impacts me.”
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The album reveals the conscientious place he is shifting in direction of, and he thinks folks will get an understanding of the place he desires his profession to maneuver sooner or later. Already, it has been 20 years since Calle 13. On “Ron En El Piso,” he raps: “I do know I am not so related. Earlier than they’d ask me for images, all devoted, now they cease me to take the images.” It is some self-deprecation with a facet of humor, however Residente does really feel himself getting into a brand new period, one which’s not as pushed by the tempo of the music business and the ambitions of an artist on the heart of the scene. “I am not going to cease making music… At a musical stage, I may need my initiatives, however I do not assume I am going to tour lots. As a substitute of 100 reveals like earlier than, possibly I am going to do like 20. I feel it is the start of transitioning to various things.”
Las Letras Ya No Importan is step one. “I hope folks see this as a transitional course of and that they will determine the songs that I am connecting with essentially the most proper now, with out me having to say it. I hope they will see the variations on this mission and the method of an evolution for me.”
Residente Discusses His New Album ‘Las Letras No Importan’
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