Why do we like Quimi Portet so much?
BarcelonaA few days ago, a younger friend asked in a chat room why we like Quimi Portet so much. Some of the responses were: "For his lyrics," "He has a cool, naughty side," "He's aged really well," and "He already had great songs with El Último de la Fila." I added that she understands Catalonia very well. "Very well argued, I'll listen to it," she concluded.
What everyone should do, whether they've never heard of it or not. Quimi Portet, as those of us who are poster fans, is to read the volume that collects his songs in Catalan: Songs in Bello Limousin 1987-2020, published by La Segunda Periferia. I should warn you, from the outset, that I may not be very objective in this article because, apart from the fact that I already liked The Last in Line When I was a teenager, I think the Electromagnetic Songbook, Quimi Portet's third Catalan album, is one of the best albums ever produced in this country, in the one next door, and in those beyond. La Segunda Periferia is also my publishing house and its illustrious editor-in-chief. Miguel Adam, a good friend. But this doesn't cloud my path, and I can confidently affirm that he's a publisher with judgment and good ideas (some have even been pioneered by large groups in the inner periphery). But if Portet is cool, as one of my friends said, it's precisely because, despite being a regional star, he's decided to back an independent Catalan publishing house, even though that probably means pocketing less money. In this, he's not very Catalan, and for that very reason, he's the perfect Catalan, like a kind of super-Catalan. über-Catalan, As Nietzsche would say, he has gone through the three corresponding stages of metamorphosis: he accepts the linguistic, cultural, and historical heritage, but rejects the cultural and shopkeeper provincialism and, like the child he still is, renews his language, creates his own universe, and formulates a vision of his music and the country that is both rooted and universal and transformative. I attribute this to the fact that he is both from Barcelona and Vic, an unbeatable identity combination.
Portet knows how to capture in his verses, with precise vocabulary, the landscapes of the Catalonia he loves and that surrounds us: farmhouses, villages, forests and fields, or walk hand in hand with him through Barcelona, from the Mar Bella to Tres Torres, white with seagulls, green with parrots. It represents the country I like and want to belong to, the Catalonia that makes me feel proud and doesn't make me feel ashamed, the one that exudes intelligence, talent, self-esteem, respect, humor and language. Self-centered and with its own references, as when he sings in Francesc Pujols, heir to Llull, and mentions Ausiàs March and others such as Rusiñol, Casas, the great Gaudí, Sisa, Pau Riba, Miró, Dalí, Manolo Vázquez, Albert and Josep Pla, Lluís Massana, Raimon, Bonet, Llach and Coromina. But he does not renounce international references, both in music with theunderground American, as in the letters, where we can find echoes as eclectic as those of Camarón de la Isla or EE Cummings.
Albert Bofill, another super-Catalan, said that in this country you have to disguise yourself as normal when you have talent. Quimi Portet would be the ultimate chameleon.
