Rodrigo Cuevas: "We folk singers must try to be mistaken for part of the popular heritage"

BarcelonaOn the cover of the new album, Beauty Manual (El Cohete-Sony), Rodrigo Cuevas (Oviedo, 1985) appears in a full-body cast, surrounded by four other men in similar casts. It's not entirely clear whether the image evokes a fine arts studio, Pompeian plaster casts, or if Cuevas and his companions, given everything that's happening here and everywhere, have received... "No matter how many ogres surround us, beauty will continue to exist and will survive. Beauty will survive anything, even humankind," says Rodrigo Cuevas. The album tour will reach Barcelona at the Sant Jordi Club on May 9th as part of Guitar BCN. The production will include an audience on stage, in the style of... Wine presses, the short film inspired by the program Songs with which he presented three of the album's tracks.

After Courtship manual(2019) and Pilgrimage manual(2023)With his new album, Cuevas closes a trilogy with which, more than giving instructions, he says he wants to share everything he's learning with the public. "The albums are like books I write for myself; perhaps they're also a bit like self-help books, so I don't lose my bearings, so I don't forget everything I've learned in life, and above all, so I don't become a..." tacky"," says Cuevas. The first single from the album, Brave New WorldWith the collaboration of Massiel, it was a real statement of intent. It champions a place where you are cared for and can be who you want in freedom. "It had been about twenty years since Massiel had recorded anything new, it's been quite magical," explains the Asturian musician, who in another of the album's tracks, BLZA, In the song, which she collaborates with Mala Rodríguez, she defines herself as "nature's best creation," and both satirize beauty standards and the pressure to suffer to look good. Furthermore, the pasodoble Take me out dancingWith Ana Belén, auti is an ode to love and desire in old age. "For the collaborations, I wrote a letter to the Three Kings, and most of my wishes came true," she says.

On another topic, An ideal deathWith the Galician band Grande Amore and the ever-faithful Mapi Quintana, Cuevas asserts that even how one leaves this world can be beautiful, and that in heaven one encounters idols, among them Rocío Jurado, Lina Morgan, Concha Velasco, Juan Gabriel, and Nino Bravo. "That too is beauty, all that cultural legacy that makes me feel proud of humanity, because I want to highlight everything that can give us hope and well-being, like Selena singing a cumbia, Juan Gabriel, or Lina Morgan—all those people were beacons of idealism." Another duet is with the Barcelona-based band Tarta Relena, following their live performance at the Poesía y + festival in Caldes d'Estrac a few years ago, in the traditional The handkerchief"On this album I portray different types of beauty; there are different moments that are more visual or more emotional, and The handkerchief "It possesses a more elevated vocal beauty."

Every time this folkloric shakerqueerHe announces a new album, raising expectations to see if he maintains the excellence of his highly personal career, fusing folk and electronic music in both production and lyrics. The album consists of ten songs, and at times the line between Cuevas's style and traditional music becomes very blurred. "I really like that this is happening, because it's something I play with a lot. I've already started experimenting with it." Courtship manual"And I think it's something we folk singers should do: try to blend in with the popular heritage, so that people don't know what's ours and what isn't," the artist explains. And to that end, she has reunited with Puerto Rican producer Eduardo Cabra (formerly of Calle 13), with whom she made Pilgrimage manualAlthough the creative process was very different.

"I wanted to work with Edu again because I felt we still had a lot to do together and we understand each other superbly. And on this album, we further deepened this understanding and it was much easier to work. But the two previous albums I had already worked on in the studio: with the songs very well composed, very well composed, very well composed. A bit the opposite: I arrived at the studio and had barely had time to work on anything, and I did everything there," says Cuevas, "in the middle of the tour."

Perhaps because he didn't have everything so planned, Cuevas set out to make an orthodox bolero, but more in form than in lyrics, Chardinero"I love boleros and I would love to make a bolero album. I would love to have Los Sabandeños with me and be María Dolores Pradera." Chardinero I wrote it from beginning to end in two hours when I was in Puerto Rico, as if I shouldn't write a bolero in Puerto Rico, with all the great stars of bolero music there!" And a Cuevas album wouldn't be complete without the return, as well as the critique of the ravages of tourism in The beachnor the hustle and bustle, like some Malaga verdiales playing makineros to The party.