Aletoso. Adjective referring to a person who causes noise or disturbance. A definition of the ‘Dictionary of Americanisms’ that, in reality, falls short for the emotion that the singer transmits Isabel Ramírez Ocampo, The Girl, every time he pronounces it before a captivated crowd in the Capital Hall of the Bogotá Cinematheque.
(We also recommend: Adriana Lucía: her music and her social work, in ‘El cine y yo’)
For The Girl everything can be fluttery, the good, the bad, what moves her.
– What is it to be fluttery?
– It’s like…heavy. As heavy or also surprising. Or also tremendous… a chimba, I don’t know: it’s a very spontaneous expression… I speak like this a lot: I grew up with my brothers and my cousins, all saying “De kilo”, “chop with potatoes”, “Denzel Washington”…
– And what is Denzel Washington?
– Uff … aletoso.
Its presence and its freshness summoned dozens of people who filled the largest movie theater in Bogotá, with the double merit of having done it at the same time that the Colombia selection their last match of the World Cup Qualifiers was played.
(The National Team, in ‘El cine y yo’: Willington Ortiz talks about soccer and movies in ‘El cine y yo’)
The Girl delighted, The Girl aroused smiles and applause, her song voice with more than three million views on YouTube narrated the film of his life in the session of El Cine y yo, with everything and its happy ending. It was very… ‘Denzel Washington.’
“Those numbers that are on YouTube at the end of the day do not represent anything but the desire of the people to listen. And it’s been lonely”, said the singer-songwriter of powerful darts like ‘Pal Monte’, ‘La sede’ and ‘No azara’, whose choir is sung by hundreds of young people during her performances:
And to me that they shoot me in front
And let it be at the door of my house
Because I die on my land
And they don’t take me out of this land…
(You may be interested in: ‘I want to eat street food’: Leonor Espinosa, in El cine y yo)
Where did your stage name come from?
The Girl was like a coincidence. When I began to feed that desire to sing, from absolute shyness, because people scared me a lot, I said ‘I want to do a solo project’, and then I remembered a lot of a song by Sabú (‘I live again, I sing again ‘), which my mother used to sing and which said: “bird girl, my blue sky”. I said: “bird girl”, how nice to do something with that name, a song, something. And when the solo project came out, then I put on Bird Girl. But later I said “what about the bird for what? I am a girl and already…”
In those first gigs that I did in Manizales, with a friend who has a very nice group called Pajaros y cuerdas –he is a partner who moves with all the singer-songwriters who go to Manizales–, he asked me: And how do I put it in the poster? I told him: “No, only a girl”. When she’s ready, I’ll change.
When you weren’t listening to Sabu songs, what did your mom do?
My cunt! So cute: she was a secretary all her life. With a wonderful gift for people, she worked for a long time at the University of Caldas, in Fine Arts, in the Employee Fund. She has always done that and we had to see her work all her life, running from one place to another. And my cucho, traveling.
Why did your dad travel so much?
The cucho drove a van all his life and traveled to the towns of Caldas: Samaná, Marquetalia, Pácora, Marulanda. And he also had to experience a lot of things on the roads. My dad traveled on Monday, let’s say, he came back on Wednesday nights and on Sundays. We always saw him two days a week, when his work was so intense. With the cardboard boxes of the merchandise we threw ourselves down the kitchen stairs.
(More recommendations: Lorena Arenas’ Olympic medal has a lentil flavor)
Have you always had that feminist spirit?
No, because it was very difficult to be born with that spirit, that’s up to the ‘Chinese’ of today. But to us, no. Ours was a very long process, getting to know him through the other friends from the university. From our moms, not so much. It is more an act of collective learning. There are more and more spaces where you always have to wear the purple ‘gafita’.
At what point did you see music as a profession?
That was in 2012. I started with a reggae band called La Pata Records. I was 18 years old, I was dealing with the band for two years and that’s where it all started. We were at the Manizales shout rock festival for the first time. I had never been to a festival. It was very difficult for me to sing in front of the public. I didn’t tune, I didn’t breathe, I was scared shitless… not even in front of my mom. And with that band I let loose a lot.
Before that, I hung out with metalheads on the corner of the neighborhood. We drank horrible pola… I met the Beatles, Oasis, Ekhymosis. We sang all the time and since it scared me so much, they told me: “Close your eyes when you go to sing”. They taught me to play guitar too. That was every weekend, and on December 8 we cried because John Lennon had been killed. Committed to the party!
And then?
When I joined the band we moved, I worked a lot, we were in Pereira, at Convivencia Rock, which was a festival that died but it was going to be a small Rock at Parque del Eje Cafetero. And after that, I didn’t stop.
(Another woman invited to ‘El cine y yo’: Yolanda Reyes, during the Bogotá Book Fair)
Have you taken your music to many places in the country?
It has been very special to be able to prioritize that you have to know the terroir first. It has been very nice, I have reached places that I did not imagine reaching. In which I did not imagine that someone knew me or wanted to go and listen to me.
What is the most special stage in which you have performed?
Singing in Usme, on the Bridge of Dignity. That was the busiest day, because I was even attentive to accompanying the national strike. It was like a necessity: if I talk about those things in the songs, nonconformity, rage, the socio-political context, one cannot expect a different consequence than these patches summoning you. May the street summon you. One cannot escape that.
It happened to me with Usme: I had never seen so many people sing my songs at the same time, as well as with a force… and on top of that a rainbow comes out, a crazy thing! I remember that I finished singing and I kept my hands on my mouth… and people made more noise, I cried and more noise. We were resisting, accompanying, all of us together.
How did you meet and end up working with Andrea Echeverri?
She wrote to me one day. They were going to get us together to do something with a magazine and I got a message on WhatsApp. It was Andrea, fagot! Me: “No, I’m going to die! Can not be”. And we started to connect cool, to meet her in her intimate spaces. I feel very fortunate to be able to learn from her and to share, to relate horizontally. Such tenacious people, that it is inevitable to feel all the admiration for her figure and her experience, but there comes a time when you ground yourself and she is not just an idol, she is a person. A woman. Companion of the trade. And we can chat about anything other than work.
(By the way: Andrea Echeverri, her life and her favorite movies, in ‘El cine y yo’)
It happened to me with Usme: I had never seen so many people sing my songs at the same time, as well as with a force… and on top of that a rainbow comes out, a crazy thing!
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What was your participation in her exhibition, called ‘Ovaries calvaries’?
Andrea taught me to paint on enameled crockery. Andrea’s work is very impressive, I love that she is one of those great people, who can do anything and she is also a mother. How does she do so many things and so impressive? In ceramics, they are pieces and pieces and pieces, he has an inexhaustible imagination and craft.
And did you also meet the musician Edson Velandia?
It’s wonderful to be able to talk about friendship with those characters. That really is a very fluttery reference of the way in which one can live from this. Cool that he has not been in the central cities, but that he begins to build a cultural reality from Piedecuesta. And to propose so many things: the Batucada guaricha, La bellezera, which is this community library; Kussi Hayra (cultural house), which is a beautiful space, the La Tigra Festival…
And I met him because I wanted to be at the La Tigra Festival, but he was in Medellín. My cell phone rang and it was Edson: I didn’t know what to do, but he told me he wanted me at the La Tigra Festival, that was in 2019 and after that I haven’t stopped going to any festival. It is very important to go to that space because it is completely different from anything we know in the festival format. Starting because you have to know Piedecuesta. I hope it lasts for many years.
How is your songwriting process?
Sometimes it’s hard to sit down and write. But still there are sparks, the cell phone recorder rescues one. After something comes to mind, a phrase or a tone, whatever, I always have my cell phone at hand as if to record. Then I sit down and review it, I say “see, this is cool”. And I give it free rein and work on it. I remember that ‘The sit-in’ was born like this: in the pandemic, I wrote something (…) We couldn’t do anything, not even go out on the street. I was sitting on the bed… and that’s where it came from, apparently, from contemplating the minimum actions, from being locked up in the house listening to people yelling outside: “Help, I want to eat.” What’s that? It is essential for me to try to understand and dissect all this that moves me.
(Another talk from ‘El cine y yo’: Alejandro Riaño plans the end of Juanpis González)
Where do you get the themes of your songs from?
From everyday life. The idea is not to be indifferent to that everyday life, be it heavy or wonderful, loving or sad. There will always be input to create. From the most banal to the darkest, deepest and most intimate. That is not chosen, that comes out. I am at that stage of channeling my own anger and my own nonconformity and trying to learn, through what I sing and what I write. I feel that the songs have helped me understand this reality in which I live. And the need to talk about what bothers me, how painful it is, how powerless it makes me not to have direct actions on the transformation of that reality, beyond my songs. But then I say: Oh, no, the songs also help.
It’s cool not to keep composing things about how painful it is to live here, because that also has to be alleviated. One gets very emotionally charged and then people also start putting fight flags over your head: “You are the voice of…” And no. The voice already has the people. Colombia screams all the time. The only thing one does is amplify, through what she considers possible. This is what I can do and I accompany. I am a speaker, but I am not the voice of anyone.
How far do you want to go in the music industry?
Not huge. Neither Shaki, nor Juanes, nor Grammy, nothing. I’m not interested. I am interested in the spaces where you can build through this trade that is music are coherent spaces, where I want to be. The cool thing about independent racing is that you have complete control over your camel. And that seems important to me: knowing how to say no. Contemplate spaces of silence and recharge for one. This job is very exhausting. It is very crazy to put all your energy and all your emotion to face an audience. Looking people in the eye and saying: “here I am singing this to you, what are we going to do? Let’s discuss? Let’s Dance? Deciding to live from this is very finicky.
JULY CESAR GUZMAN
Editor of the Visual Table of EL TIEMPO
On Twitter: @julguz
(One last suggestion: ‘Welcome the strange’: Brigitte Baptiste)
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