Santiago Cruz, far from complaining about the overwhelming success of Colombian urban music in the world, celebrates the fact that in that country a small –but important– group of performers add “a lot of value” to the sounds that are produced at that point on Earth.
“There are many of us doing different things,” said the singer in a recent interview. “There’s Bomba Estéreo, Manuel Medrano, Monsieur Periné, me […] This diversity seems to me to be one of the most beautiful values of Colombian music at the moment.”
And then he goes into an issue that has to to see with the chakras and where the urban music points and where the romantic or love music, which is what he interprets.
The urban music and reggaeton, he explains, points to the hip, to the sexual part of the human being. Not so the one he writes.
“I talk about things from the heart, not necessarily romantic”, he explained. “But things of the heart; from time to time I also point to reflections of our surroundings, of our reality”.
On this occasion, Santiago promotes “Casi”, a song he wrote inspired by the film Eternal radiance of a mind without memories of 2004. And since he does not want to reveal details so as not to spoil the experience for those who have not seen the film, he limits himself to saying that the subject speaks of the possibility of erasing the memory of a person.
“I thought the approach of that film is very nice”, he said. “The idea is that if I only have one memory of that person left, I want to say ‘this’ to him before the memory is erased.”
This song will be part of the new album that Santiago will release in 2023, whose name, by the way, he preferred not to reveal.
And no, the album will not include any urban themes, although the record companies insist on that the singers must record that rhythm because “everyone” is listening to it.
“I move in that spectrum of romanticism”, said the artist. “It’s what I like to do, it’s what I feel; I have done it for many years and I will continue doing it”.