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Many fashionable musicians have created fictional alter egos as a option to discover new sonic avenues that they want to experiment with. David Bowie had Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, David Johansen had Buster Poindexter, Lady Gaga spent an entire season as Jo Calderone, and the much less stated about Garth Brooks’s Chris Gaines period the higher, but it surely actually occurred. For them, it is a form of efficiency artwork — an expression of their curiosity in stepping out of their consolation zone and giving the endeavor a theatrical aptitude as properly.
The debate about whether or not these may very well be thought-about merely publicity stunts is legitimate, however for some artists, there is a true inventive want to inhabit these personas. For Adriana Rivera, a Puerto Rican singer-songwriter, it is a end result of her dream to merge two inventive outputs which have lengthy fascinated and impressed her: music and performing. From this want and its manifestation, Rivera set herself apart, and in her place emerged Lúconde and their debut album, “La Actriz: Acto I.” The EP is a magical assortment of alt-perreo, acutely aware boleros, and progressive Latin soul. As Rivera explains, “Lúconde is principally the mom character that serves as a vessel for different personas (or faces, as she calls them) to emerge.” For that purpose, she invitations listeners to name her by both identify.
Lúconde is an artist with a lot of concepts, who has been looking out a very long time for a option to specific them. A toddler of dancers from reggaeton’s early roots, when it was generally known as “underground” — her mom was a background dancer for Vico C, whereas her father danced for Ruben DJ — she grew up in a house that valued each music and efficiency and the overlap between the 2. Lúconde was enrolled in ballet, the place dance and expression are inextricably intertwined, and sang in her church’s refrain, the place she started to find her voice and check its limits and vary.
Not quickly after, she was satisfied by associates to audition for her college’s drama membership. In a prescient twist, the monologue used for the audition belonged to a task a couple of character affected by dissociative id dysfunction.
“I keep in mind researching lots. I keep in mind practising [the monologue] alone at house. I had no coaching in any way, however I keep in mind clicking with that lots,” she says. “There was a whole lot of that course of that clicked with me very deeply, and I keep in mind considering, ‘OK, I really like music and I’ve at all times been concerned with music, however I feel [acting] goes to be one thing that I’m gonna dedicate myself extra to.'”
For “La Actriz: Acto I,” Lúconde reached again and channeled the teachings from her days doing theater. She recollects being taken by the way in which performing helped her to attach together with her interior ideas and widen her view of the behaviors of individuals round her.
“I discovered [to] not take issues at face worth, which is one thing that I really feel like I’m actively finding out inside myself and society — simply taking a look at issues from totally different views,” she says. “There’s at all times extra behind somebody, which I additionally suppose in performing that is what you [search for].”
During the downtime that enveloped the world in 2020, she started to consider how she might fuse her pursuits. She started to write down, considering on subjects that had been near her. She started to flesh out the overarching idea of the EP and conjured up what would develop into the roster of alter egos that embody every monitor: La Malasuerte, Näia Kiyomi, Lilu, Miss Quinn, Bo Aracnia, Adela, and Nina Sorei.
Executing out such a far-out concept for a debut EP was a dangerous proposition, however she was decided to deliver it to fruition. Through mutual contacts she obtained in contact with Gyanma, an indie fan favourite who produces tasks for himself and others out of his personal studio, referred to as Alas. Whatever trepidation he had concerning the formidable concepts she introduced evaporated as quickly as he put her in entrance of the microphone.
“From the start, I acknowledged it was a really distinctive idea,” says Gyanma, who produced each monitor on the EP. “Throughout recording and producing the music, each monitor stored evolving, and once we listened to the ultimate album put collectively, we knew it was one thing very, very particular.”
As a companion to the album, Lúconde produced, directed, and starred in music movies for the tracks. It’s right here that her totally different personas can really be appreciated. La Malasuerte, a trickster changeling that occupies each body of “Macacoa” with mischievous intentions. Näia Kiyomi, closely impressed by Jennifer Check of the film “Jennifer’s Body,” enacts empowered, violent revenge in “6eis.” Lilu and Bo Aracnia each break the foundations in favor of righteous anarchy in “Bendito Caos” and “Tus Cartas Póker,” respectively. In “El Frío del Alba,” Adela displays on the lengthy, sordid historical past and ache that ladies have carried all through the battle for bodily autonomy, particularly within the face of eroding abortion rights.
“This could be very autobiographical. What I’m doing is simply taking the Stanislavski strategy of performing and reworking it right into a philosophy of life, as a result of that is who I’m,” she says. “I really feel like performing saved me. Acting gave me a lot perspective of life, of individuals, of society, and of myself. That’s form of the place all of it begins, as a result of with every character I’m exhibiting totally different sides and totally different points of myself, and the actor research the grey space of life, the grey in individuals.”
When speaking about her future, Lúconde foresees extra tasks in the identical vein as “Acto I.” For now, she does not see herself dabbling in additional mainstream songs divorced from this album’s conceit. In truth, she’s already brainstorming which personas she’ll make the most of once more, and new ones to introduce as properly. As the album’s title implies, it is merely the primary act of what’s going to slowly unfold as a bigger all-encompassing mission.
“This mission is synonymous with the place I’m in life proper now. I really feel like I’m nonetheless within the midst of turning into. This mission is a whole lot of the youthful, naive points of myself,” she says.
She intends to totally develop the visible aspect as properly, founding her personal manufacturing firm the place she’ll be capable of management that facet of growth in addition to assist different artists with their very own tasks. “La Actriz: Acto I” was an effort that took a very long time to come back collectively, however for Lúconde it has been price every little thing she invested in bringing it to life.
“Once I knew that I needed to be La Actriz within the music trade, I had a route,” she says. “For me that is actually necessary; I’ve at all times [felt] like I’ve to have some concept of who I wish to be. In that sense, now I understand how fortunate I’m to know who I’m a bit of bit. I nonetheless really feel like I’ve a protracted option to go, however I’ve at all times had the imaginative and prescient. I’ve at all times nourished that. I’ve at all times protected that.”
The strands that hyperlink the sunshine and shadow inside each human being — and the way in which they will deliver individuals collectively underneath higher understanding and empathy — are what Lúconde needs to underscore.
“Everything is related: our spirituality, our physicality, our thoughts, our feelings. As an actor, my physique, my thoughts, my feelings are my instruments. The extra acquainted I’m with myself, the higher human I can be. That’s what I’m making an attempt to discover with music. I at all times say, ‘Through my work I’m complete,’ as a result of I get to specific all of those totally different points of myself.” It’s a ardour mission that not solely makes her really feel fulfilled, however hopefully finds followers who’ll additionally admire the totally different ranges of creativity that make it up. “I felt like I needed to be a creator, and I really feel like music allowed me to do all that. And I noticed I did not must sacrifice my id as an actress. Maybe I might simply be La Actriz.”
POPSUGAR: What is your favourite phrase?
Lúconde: Curiosity.
POPSUGAR: What is your favourite quote?
Lúconde: “You do not have a proper to something on this life, however there’s nothing you may’t obtain.”
POPSUGAR: What is your favourite play?
Lúconde: “No Exit” by Jean-Paul Sartre.
POPSUGAR: What is your favourite film?
Lúconde: Well, I really like “Black Swan.” It was “The Pursuit of Happyness.” I feel now, “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
POPSUGAR: Who is your favourite fictional character?
Lúconde: Raven from “Teen Titans.”
POPSUGAR: What are you listening to lately?
Lúconde: Gesaffelstein, Belén Aguilera, and “Scarlet” by Doja Cat.
POPSUGAR: What individual involves thoughts whenever you hear the phrase “inspiration”?
Lúconde: My grandfather. We had been very shut, and he would discuss to me about many issues. My favourite quote is one thing he’d at all times inform me.
POPSUGAR: Do you favor to be the hero or the villain?
Lúconde: I desire to be the villain that turns into a hero.
Image Source: Lorainne Medina
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