When he was still a teenager, Marco Palou decided to travel to New York to pursue a life as an artist. However, what was least abundant in his house was money. At that time, his father received a payment for a business he did, and without hesitation she gave it to Marco to begin his journey.
“Instead of changing cars or buying clothes, he gave it to me so I could go to New York,” said the artist. “He did it even though many people told him not to.”
Marco’s dream was to dedicate himself to acting, dancing, singing. Anything he had to do with art. In his native Jujuy, Argentina, he had studied several disciplines, including classical ballet—this hidden from his mother, who was not happy that his son danced.
At the age of 18, Marco began to make his way in the Big Apple and offers to perform began to arrive. He was in a good place when he decided he would have a nose job because he had a little problem breathing.
Then his odyssey began.
“They left a piece of cotton on my nose,” he said. “It seemed like a creature of [la cinta] Avatar; I stopped acting even though I had a lot of work; I had to put my life on pause because I was very close to death.”
Marco got over the trance, but that experience gave him the idea for what would be a fun song with pop rhythms for his album “Americano,” which will go on sale on July 4.
The song, titled “Cara de ule”—“ule” without the ax—is a satire on the predominant tendency of many people to modify their bodies or faces with plastic surgeries in an effort to improve their appearance.
This happened more than ten years ago, but it was an event that changed the direction of Marco’s career, whose artist name is Baby Yors. During his convalescence and solitude, he devoted himself to writing and developing his facet as a singer-songwriter.
“I always did it, but now it was deeper,” said Marco, 32. “He had done many things, like dance, sports, languages, classical dance, but all with little depth, and suddenly everything falls silent; I felt like I grew up at that moment.”
The album contains eight tracks in total that celebrate Marco’s assimilation and love of America.
“I needed to express what was on my mind,” he said. “I came from the mountains, I had no connections or anything, and suddenly, being in New York was like being a toad from another well; Almost since I arrived I thought about doing something with this experience.”
Later, the artist—who has lived in Los Angeles for more than two years—hopes to make a deluxe edition of “Americano,” where he plans to add about five more songs. It is part of his celebration of now feeling as Argentine as he is American. It has been 14 years since he arrived and many of the obstacles he faced as an immigrant—including language—have already been overcome.
“I dream in both languages but now I feel at home, and that’s what the album is,” he said.