Polimá Westcoast puts a face to the Chilean trap

It is difficult to start a conversation with Polimá Westcoast without asking her the origin of her name, because that is her real name, and not a pseudonym that he uses for his career as a trap and hip hop performer.

“My parents chose to give me that name,” said the singer. “My father is from Angola and my mother from Chile.”

In an African dialect, Polimá means intelligence, and Ngangu, his middle name, means respect.

“My mother liked them and decided to leave them as my name,” said the artist in a conversation via Zoom from Santiago, Chile. The purpose of the interview was to talk about “Enigma”, one of the seven singles that “The Chronicles of Ngangu II” will include, an epé that will be released in the coming months.

But the name was not the strangest thing in Polimá’s life, but also her condition as a black person in a country where the white race predominates. He grew up in Independencia, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Santiago. His mother and grandmother raised him because his father left his life when he was still very young.

“I grew up in a multicultural environment because in the 97 There weren’t many blacks in Chile, ”he said. “So it was very rare to grow up in an environment with only white people, and I did not feel identified with them musically.”

Polimá leaned more towards rap and music. American hip hop, and that was the music that influenced his style when he started singing professionally, less than five years ago. Now he is considered a pioneer of South American trap, a movement that is gaining strength and that has its own identity.

“Trap is my comfort zone” said the artist. “Trap for me has become the lifestyle that I lead; It is the best way I have to communicate with the world, to express what I am, how I like to see things. ”

Ironically, Polimá, from 23 years, has no contact with his parent, but with his 13 brothers, all children of their father but procreated with several women. Currently four of them are working on Polimá’s musical and production projects.

“Enigma”, meanwhile, and like the rest of the songs on the new epé It is a spiritual issue because “I connected with myself,” said the singer. “This project is not religious, but it is spiritual. I feel that this album will reflect the panorama of Spanish-language music that is made in South America. ”

The video also reflects another of Polimá’s concerns, that it is acting. In this video clip, the artist plays six different characters, and does not rule out comedy at some point. His role models are artists like Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. It is only part of what he imagines doing, because his dreams are many.

“This is what I imagined with my career,” he said. “And I imagine much further.”