Tell Me Más: Meet Puerto Rican Experimental Artist Lúconde

Many fashionable musicians have created fictional alter egos as a solution to discover new sonic avenues that they want to experiment with. David Bowie had Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, David Johansen had Buster Poindexter, Woman Gaga spent a complete season as Jo Calderone, and the much less stated about Garth Brooks’s Chris Gaines period the higher, but it surely actually occurred. For them, it is a form of efficiency artwork — an expression of their curiosity in stepping out of their consolation zone and giving the endeavor a theatrical aptitude as properly.

The controversy about whether or not these may very well be thought-about merely publicity stunts is legitimate, however for some artists, there is a true inventive want to inhabit these personas. For Adriana Rivera, a Puerto Rican singer-songwriter, it is a end result of her dream to merge two creative outputs which have lengthy fascinated and impressed her: music and performing. From this want and its manifestation, Rivera set herself apart, and in her place emerged Lúconde and their debut album, “La Actriz: Acto I.” The EP is a magical assortment of alt-perreo, acutely aware boleros, and progressive Latin soul. As Rivera explains, “Lúconde is principally the mom character that serves as a vessel for different personas (or faces, as she calls them) to emerge.” For that motive, she invitations listeners to name her by both title.

Lúconde is an artist with plenty of concepts, who has been looking a very long time for a solution to categorical them. A baby of dancers from reggaeton’s early roots, when it was often called “underground” — her mom was a background dancer for Vico C, whereas her father danced for Ruben DJ — she grew up in a house that valued each music and efficiency and the overlap between the 2. Lúconde was enrolled in ballet, the place dance and expression are inextricably intertwined, and sang in her church’s refrain, the place she started to find her voice and check its limits and vary.

Not quickly after, she was satisfied by mates to audition for her college’s drama membership. In a prescient twist, the monologue used for the audition belonged to a task a few character affected by dissociative identification dysfunction.

“I bear in mind researching so much. I bear in mind training [the monologue] alone at house. I had no coaching in any respect, however I bear in mind clicking with that so much,” she says. “There was loads of that course of that clicked with me very deeply, and I bear in mind considering, ‘OK, I like music and I’ve all the time been concerned with music, however I believe [acting] goes to be one thing that I am gonna dedicate myself extra to.'”

For “La Actriz: Acto I,” Lúconde reached again and channeled the teachings from her days doing theater. She recollects being taken by the way in which performing helped her to attach along with her interior ideas and widen her view of the behaviors of individuals round her.

“I realized [to] not take issues at face worth, which is one thing that I really feel like I am actively learning inside myself and society — simply taking a look at issues from completely different views,” she says. “There’s all the time extra behind somebody, which I additionally suppose in performing that is what you [search for].”

Through the downtime that enveloped the world in 2020, she started to consider how she may fuse her pursuits. She started to put in writing, considering on subjects that had been near her. She started to flesh out the overarching idea of the EP and conjured up what would turn out to be the roster of alter egos that embody every monitor: La Malasuerte, Näia Kiyomi, Lilu, Miss Quinn, Bo Aracnia, Adela, and Nina Sorei.

Executing out such a far-out concept for a debut EP was a dangerous proposition, however she was decided to carry it to fruition. By means of mutual contacts she bought in contact with Gyanma, an indie fan favourite who produces tasks for himself and others out of his personal studio, referred to as Alas. No matter trepidation he had in regards to the bold concepts she offered evaporated as quickly as he put her in entrance of the microphone.

“From the start, I acknowledged it was a really distinctive idea,” says Gyanma, who produced each monitor on the EP. “All through recording and producing the music, each monitor stored evolving, and after we listened to the ultimate album put collectively, we knew it was one thing very, very particular.”

As a companion to the album, Lúconde produced, directed, and starred in music movies for the tracks. It is right here that her completely different personas can actually be appreciated. La Malasuerte, a trickster changeling that occupies each body of “Macacoa” with mischievous intentions. Näia Kiyomi, closely impressed by Jennifer Test of the film “Jennifer’s Physique,” enacts empowered, violent revenge in “6eis.” Lilu and Bo Aracnia each break the foundations in favor of righteous anarchy in “Bendito Caos” and “Tus Cartas Póker,” respectively. In “El Frío del Alba,” Adela displays on the lengthy, sordid historical past and ache that girls have carried all through the battle for bodily autonomy, particularly within the face of eroding abortion rights.

“That is very autobiographical. What I am doing is simply taking the Stanislavski strategy of performing and reworking it right into a philosophy of life, as a result of that is who I’m,” she says. “I really feel like performing saved me. Appearing gave me a lot perspective of life, of individuals, of society, and of myself. That is form of the place all of it begins, as a result of with every character I am exhibiting completely different sides and completely different points of myself, and the actor research the grey space of life, the grey in individuals.”

When speaking about her future, Lúconde foresees extra tasks in the identical vein as “Acto I.” For now, she does not see herself dabbling in additional mainstream songs divorced from this album’s conceit. The truth is, she’s already brainstorming which personas she’ll make the most of once more, and new ones to introduce as properly. Because the album’s title implies, it is merely the primary act of what is going to slowly unfold as a bigger all-encompassing venture.

“This venture is synonymous with the place I’m in life proper now. I really feel like I am nonetheless within the midst of turning into. This venture is loads of the youthful, naive points of myself,” she says.

She intends to completely broaden the visible aspect as properly, founding her personal manufacturing firm the place she’ll be capable to management that side of improvement in addition to assist different artists with their very own tasks. “La Actriz: Acto I” was an effort that took a very long time to come back collectively, however for Lúconde it has been value every little thing she invested in bringing it to life.

“As soon as I knew that I needed to be La Actriz within the music trade, I had a course,” she says. “For me that is actually essential; I’ve all the time [felt] like I’ve to have some concept of who I need to be. In that sense, now I notice how fortunate I’m to know who I’m just a little bit. I nonetheless really feel like I’ve an extended solution to go, however I’ve all the time had the imaginative and prescient. I’ve all the time nourished that. I’ve all the time protected that.”

The strands that hyperlink the sunshine and shadow inside each human being — and the way in which they’ll carry individuals collectively beneath higher understanding and empathy — are what Lúconde needs to underscore.

“Every part is related: our spirituality, our physicality, our thoughts, our feelings. As an actor, my physique, my thoughts, my feelings are my instruments. The extra acquainted I’m with myself, the higher human I shall be. That is what I am making an attempt to discover with music. I all the time say, ‘By means of my work I’m entire,’ as a result of I get to precise all of those completely different points of myself.” It is a ardour venture that not solely makes her really feel fulfilled, however hopefully finds followers who’ll additionally recognize the completely different ranges of creativity that make it up. “I felt like I needed to be a creator, and I really feel like music allowed me to do all that. And I noticed I did not should sacrifice my identification as an actress. Perhaps I may simply be La Actriz.”

POPSUGAR: What’s your favourite phrase?

Lúconde: Curiosity.

POPSUGAR: What’s your favourite quote?

Lúconde: “You do not have a proper to something on this life, however there’s nothing you possibly can’t obtain.”

POPSUGAR: What’s your favourite play?

Lúconde: “No Exit” by Jean-Paul Sartre.

POPSUGAR: What’s your favourite film?

Lúconde: Properly, I like “Black Swan.” It was “The Pursuit of Happyness.” I believe now, “Every part In every single place All at As soon as.”

POPSUGAR: Who’s your favourite fictional character?

Lúconde: Raven from “Teen Titans.”

POPSUGAR: What are you listening to as of late?

Lúconde: Gesaffelstein, Belén Aguilera, and “Scarlet” by Doja Cat.

POPSUGAR: What individual involves thoughts while you hear the phrase “inspiration”?

Lúconde: My grandfather. We had been very shut, and he would discuss to me about many issues. My favourite quote is one thing he’d all the time inform me.

POPSUGAR: Do you favor to be the hero or the villain?

Lúconde: I want to be the villain that turns into a hero.