Paulito FG: “Being Cuban is the key to gaining success” 


02/04/2010

By Lester Sibila Caraballo

Sin Etiqueta". The album shows the artistic and interpretive quality of a musician who has earned the love and respect of a very knowledgeable audience, through his simplicity and the quality of being a singer of details.

 Aware of the expectations created around his figure, he says he is ready to "give people new proposals while incorporating the requirements of the contemporary".

With the same restless spirit, I was given some details of his professional life.

—It’s been a long wait for the new album, where has Paulo FG been?

—The music scene is an environment with great diversity where people turn to certain means that I agree with and others that I do not. I respect change, but I have well-defined guidelines and comply with my history, I owe a certain type of music to my followers who have made me who I am today. I really try not to betray this, and if I were to follow certain passing patterns or trends I might be betraying my public, something that I refuse to do. So, I always take my time, whatever time necessary, to do my work and go over and change ideas to create infrastructures, trying to progress in certain stages of my artistic life.

—The popular codes and sayings represented in your lyrics have allowed you to establish a close relationship with the public. How do you achieve this?

—There is a very simple answer to that: the stage is a sacred place and the audience is my God. I have complete respect for the public and I try to enter into an almost spiritual communication with them.

-There are opposite criteria concerning the view that salsa music has lost ground in the Cuban music scene, what do you think about the topic?

-I think it is not like that. It seems salsa music has lost ground regarding the media. There is a fact that encourages me a lot in my recent tour through Europe. The most followed musical genre in the old continent was precisely Cuban timba. There are musicologists who refer to this way of making music as a specialty. They respect it as an established genre. Charanga Habanera, Los Van Van, Manolito Simonet and others are very good examples of it. That's why I say it's a matter of incentive and encouragement. It is also easier to dance reggaeton than salsa, never forget that.

-Do you think reggaeton has earned a place in the history of Cuban music?

-I think so. And not only in Cuban music but I dare to say the Antilles. There is an element that makes me see the genre without rejection. The genre’s exponents themselves have realized that if they stay in the basic lines of reggaeton they will not endure.

—There was a lot of speculation about the title of your new CD...

—I don’t like talking about what is going to happen because comments can come back at you like a boomerang. The other thing is having lots of pressure built on top of you, and negative energy can get to you just as easy as positive energy. This is why I always try to fool people, release some false information so that I can be left alone to work. The name of the CD was the idea of some of the friends of the group, because they felt that name of one of the singles, Sin Etiqueta (No Label), was a good definition of me. The chorus goes like this, I wasn’t born in El Vedado, I am not even the son of a musician, and I was born close to Marianao and raised in Buena Vista. I sing about love, to both men and women, I also sing to children and about everything that my people value; in reality, I sing for everyone and that is what keeps me afloat, I sing for those who have everything, and for those who have nothing.)” 

—After so much time since your last CD, what do you expect from this disc?

— Musically speaking, the people know what to expect from me more or less; my goal is to offer my people another album while at the same time to fulfill the demands of the current popular music.

—What do you think about the importance of being authentically Cuban to have international success?

—There are specific things that define us, certain instruments and musical sonorities; of course the key to gaining international success is being Cuban. When you look at Cuban music from a global perspective you see that it is not a copy of anything, but rather it incorporates things from the rest of the world while maintaining the seal that sets it apart. When you lose this context, you lose the base of what helps you be successful outside of Cuba. You may be talented and create good music, but whenever you lose that seal you lose your originality.

—How do you handle the phenomenon of fame?

—I try not to lose humility because it is the basis of personality. When I get off the stage I stop being Paulito the artist to become a person like the rest.

—What are your the medium-term plans?

—Paradoxically, the fewer CD you sell, the more expensive is the way of making music. If you do not have a video to introduce on the screens and good lights you do not accomplish much. In response to this, I am doing video clips on various topics to promote the album.

Cubasí Translation Staff