Concha Buika doesn’t like to define her music in conventional terms. ‘I don’t have a type of music,’ she says. ‘Music is seven notes, major and minor, it’s not a concept that you can put inside a box – it’s a sound, a rhythm, a melody.’ Others try. The Spanish singer’s sound is typically described as an eclectic mix of flamenco, jazz, funk and soul. It certainly cuts across categories. I first heard it in a scruffy bar in Cadiz old town a couple of years ago. It was early evening, and there were only three or four other people there, all quite old, all men. One put the title track of her then new album, Mi Niña Lola, and her husky voice was electric. The old men started clapping their hands rapidly, as appreciative flamenco audiences do. It was a perfect moment. Buika has that effect on people.
She received rave reviews when she made her New York debut last year. The New York Times compared her to Betty Carter, among others: ‘She can make sweeping dynamic changes, turning from tearful to desperate to furious in a phrase. She can sing the taut arabesques and unfurling improvisations of flamenco, or glide through a pop melody, or scat-sing with an exultant sense of swing.’ Now she has released a new album, Niña de Fuego, her third, which has just received a Latin Grammy nomination for album of the year. Long popular in Spain – legendary Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar recently asked her to perform at a celebration of his films – now her international reputation is growing, and she is coming to the UK for the first time to perform
Born to parents from Equatorial Guinea and raised in Majorca, Buika starting singing as a teenager. ‘For my first show, they were going to give me 10,000 pesetas [just under £50). I was a girl from the neighbourhood, and I thought 10,000 pesetas: that’s a lot of money. And I thought to myself, I want that money. For that money I would do anything.’ From there began a carousel of performances, locations and audiences, which brought her – via a stint in Las Vegas as a Tina Turner impersonator – to 2008 and the cusp of international fame.
Niña de Fuego is a unique combination of copla (an old-fashioned Spanish song style), ranchera (Mexican popular song) and rumba. Backed by talented Spanish and Cuban musicians, Buika’s music is soulful and raw. She speaks like she sings: emotional, bohemian and hard to pin down. ‘I try to take all the pain and all the suffering and let it all out through the records,’ she says. ‘I employ the music for my own redemption.’ On her inspiration, she says: ‘Every little thing that happens in our life, influences our lives and what we do. Everybody. Because to me, I am what I am because I see what I see, and I eat what I eat, and I listen to what I listen to, and I sleep with who I sleep with, and I touch what I touch. I mean, we are what we are because we do what we do. What is important is the information that we have inside, and how we can translate that information into art. Not names, art.’
Buika writes most of her songs herself or with long-time producer and collaborator Javier Limon, whom she describes as both a kindred spirit and an inspiration. ‘I get excited when I see him and he gets excited when he sees me, and when he’s excited he takes his guitar and I take my singing and we make love in the air. That’s the reason why the songs are so beautiful.’ So what does success mean to Buika? ‘Having control of my own music is very important to me. We live in a world where instruments and their sounds are driven by men. What is nice for me is that now I can create my music on my computer at home. I can programme my own sounds, so when I take a CD to the musicians or producers, they understand what I want.
‘I always think that music gives me the possibility of eternity. In 100 years, my sons, daughters, nieces and nephews will be able to hear me talking to them, telling them something. That’s wonderful. That means we are still together even if we are not here anymore.’ Go and see her if you can. She is a rare talent indeed. - Lou Cooper
