Neither more nor less, that is how she defines herself. A simple shrug clears any suspicion of vanity, when I tell her they call her the Cuban hip hop diva, queen of rap in Spanish or the new revelation of the alternative music.
Those who listen to her nuanced voice that moves naturally between jazz, reggae, funk, hip hop and traditional Cuban music, cannot imagine that the first time she stepped on a stage, with the precocity of a 15 year old girl, she had to sing with her back to the audience, that nervous she was.
They couldn’t guess either that such talent was hidden while she was secretary of a hospital or worked in a pharmacy. Lucky life has the capricious talent of straightening alone especially for those working to take dust out of moisture. Not by chance that is the name of her first album.
Danay began as a follower of rap, from club to club, between the Almendares and la Madriguera. Almost without realizing she started doing vocals and collaborating with Los Aldeanos, Papa Humbertico, Raudel, Anónimo Consejo, Krudas, DJ Lápiz and other renowned exponents of the genre.
Writing her own songs and record them, and walking to the study of Real 70, was the baptism to become part of the underground movement. “I was dissolving like sugar in water.”
Her songs cast her; reveal her with the honesty of a mirror. Suffice to listen to Individual and Yo aprendi (I learnt), truly two major statements. “I’m like very primitive to compose, I dunno, I crumbled inside.” Still, she prefers to distance herself from a little personal, with concerns that frequent social issues. “I don’t want to push the message through anyone’s throat, I try to balance what touches me from up-close to what can touch another person, make them match there.”
Two years as a soloist at the Opera de la Calle, plus works with Robertico Carcasés and X Alfonso, helped her enhance a mestizo style, strong as rap, felt like the filin. “The labels bother me a bit. I hate to say I’m a rapper, because hip hop is more than a genre, it’s like a way of life: there are my friends, there are values that I consider very important. I do not want to see me as a voice of jazz and R & B, although I may seem so. What I have most of all is a necessity of expression. ”
Such momentum has nurtured by listening. “It’s amazing, but I never have rap themes on my player. I’d rather hear traditional music, the world, things that are coming to me and I’m interested into. No I have many folders, because the music that I don’t like, I don’t like it, I do not want to have it not even to learn or anything, I think I’m very virgin in that sense. ”
The multifaceted project Havana Cultura placed the name of Danay Suarez in Paris, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Valencia … It was 2010, and British producer Gilles Peterson referred to her as the most amazing singer with whom he had worked in the last five years.
From that experience a disk was born, during some rehearsals with the musicians of Temperamento, while all were set freed to improvise without knowing they were being recorded. This led to a meeting with Roberto Fonseca, friend and mentor. “Yes, because he is the ‘whip’ of mine,” she says smiling.
Although Danay doesn’t come from artistic crib, people at home are central to her work. “I’m very proud of my family, because we are like ants, we work together. When I’m on stage, I command them to sit away, scattered, because they put a faceeeee! that I lose focus. But they are always there; I cannot imagine a great moment of my life without them. ”
Her computer skills did not fall on deaf ears, but now are pasted to her true calling. “I like doing music production, learn the programs. I love recording the voice of a person, discover it, and have the sensitivity to give the tint and ‘thing’ that leads that person, and then he will feel happy. I like, if I’m going to decorate the house, knowing a bit about yourself and know that you feel comfortable afterwards with that. ”
On the island she already has a significant roadmap: best alternative band in Cuerda Viva 2011, the same year they won the award for best hip hop video clip at the Lucas, and in her living room four hands closed in plaster indicate her triumphs at the festival Puños Arriba. To this you have to add an audience that follows her from Casa de las Americas to the theatre at the Museum of Fine Arts.
With performances scheduled for 26 and 29 in the Blackbird Ordinary (Miami) and The New Parish (Oakland), respectively, Danay now walks closer distances and finishing her album Palabras manuales, produced by Roberto Fonseca.
“It’s a different work, but the sound is not off from everything I’ve been doing on hip hop with reggae, with a bit of jazz. The message is right there, every song is a passage, I think you can watch a movie: the director of any of the video clips we can do, has a clear idea from start to finish. Fonseca has thought every musical detail, this has been a labor of craft. “
Author
Eileen Sosin Martínez
