Speaker 1: We've been through so much.
Speaker 2: It takes away your energy and you feel like, yeah,
Speaker 2: like you're stuck, but at the same time, like we
Speaker 2: have to find a way to give each other strengths.
Speaker 2: I was focusing more on the courage that I feel
Speaker 2: that we all have inside of us. That is actually
Speaker 2: what makes us react and gives us the strength and
Speaker 2: the impulse that we need to send the message that
Speaker 2: we want to send.
Speaker 3: From Futuro Media and pr X, it's Latino usay, I'm
Speaker 3: Maria no posa today. Puerto Rican singer songwriter Ile on
Speaker 3: the evolution of her music as a form of protest.
Speaker 3: For Puerto Rican singer songwriter Ileana Cabra, better known by
Speaker 3: her stage name Ile, music has always been a way
Speaker 3: to understand the world around her, even from a young age.
Speaker 2: I was a little one in the house where I
Speaker 2: grew up, so I kind of absorbed all that musicality
Speaker 2: that my whole family was listening to.
Speaker 3: Ille remembers listening to salsa and boleros with her family,
Speaker 3: often taking note of the political messages in the lively,
Speaker 3: danceable songs.
Speaker 2: My dad always likes to try to find the background
Speaker 2: of songs that he likes so I remember, for example,
Speaker 2: there's a song from Ruin Bladles that is called Tiburon,
Speaker 2: and he wrote it in Puerto Rico, and it is
Speaker 2: very connected to the history and our situation still being
Speaker 2: a colony from the United States.
Speaker 3: In Tiburon, Ruben Blades sings about a ruthless shark, symbolizing
Speaker 3: the United States. It praised on the Caribbean, and for Ile,
Speaker 3: songs like this cemented the relationship between the musical and
Speaker 3: the political. They often went hand in hand.
Speaker 2: Even though you enjoy it and you danced to it,
Speaker 2: when you sing the lyrics, it is very powerful.
Speaker 3: When Ile was a teenager, she began to sing with
Speaker 3: her older brothers Rene Perez and Eduardo Cavra, also known
Speaker 3: as Residente and Misitante from the rap duo Kaye. Under
Speaker 3: the stage name PG thirteen. Ile performed with Gaietrese through
Speaker 3: her mid twenties, but even as Ile was touring the
Speaker 3: world with Gaietrese, she continued to explore the rich legacies
Speaker 3: of music in the Caribbean, and in twenty sixteen, she
Speaker 3: decided to go solo, releasing her debut album Ileviabre with
Speaker 3: Lush Boleros and Latin jazz grooves. The album has the
Speaker 3: feel of a different era, but through her lyricism, Ile
Speaker 3: captures the feminist spirit of her generation.
Speaker 4: La gobardiadu Frere.
Speaker 3: Ile often sings about power Baya. Her second album, al Madura,
Speaker 3: was released in twenty nineteen, and Ile wrote these songs
Speaker 3: in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 3: The album draws from a vast range of Caribbean musicality
Speaker 3: to talk about the politics of colonialism in Puerto Rico, her.
Speaker 5: Home now Elimpiamano.
Speaker 3: And in her twenty twenty two album Nakarile, the singer
Speaker 3: looks within.
Speaker 5: Thenlcorazon Expresto.
Speaker 3: The album brings together the personal and the political, getting
Speaker 3: introspective about how she moves through patriarchy and colonialism without
Speaker 3: losing Pope recently released her first new song since Nakarile.
Speaker 3: It's a personal one about the end of a relationship.
Speaker 3: And Ele has confirmed that she's working on a new album.
Speaker 3: So while we wait for that release, we wanted to
Speaker 3: bring you this piece that we originally aired in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three. In this episode, I reflects on her artistic journey.
Speaker 3: Here's Ele in her own words.
Speaker 1: My name is Ile. I am from Puerto Rico and
Speaker 1: I am a singer.
Speaker 2: Where I grew up, there was a lot of music
Speaker 2: going around, like from different types of.
Speaker 1: Genres as Puerto Rico's.
Speaker 2: We listened to salsa and boleros, but at the same
Speaker 2: time we heard like rock music and also throw a
Speaker 2: like more folklore from Puerto Rico Latin America, and also
Speaker 2: there are a lot of protest songs.
Speaker 1: I think maybe in.
Speaker 2: My teenage years, suddenly I feel that I was missing
Speaker 2: out on listening female singers in this type of music
Speaker 2: like salsa and boleros that I've heard so much.
Speaker 1: And I remember having that transitional moment in my life
Speaker 1: where my dad presented me to U La Lupe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it was like, oh my god, she's like
Speaker 2: this is deep stuff.
Speaker 1: What she's singing, the way she's.
Speaker 2: Doing it, like there was a lot of emotion going
Speaker 2: on that I wasn't expecting, and I remember that I
Speaker 2: felt her so real and so passionate and so breath taking.
Speaker 2: The way she sang and the way she interpreted the
Speaker 2: song she was singing was like a shock for me,
Speaker 2: and it captured my attention a lot to listen to
Speaker 2: this real, feminine.
Speaker 1: Powerful voice and I've always sang since I was little,
Speaker 1: but I've always seen singing as more of a hobby.
Speaker 1: Little by little, I.
Speaker 2: Started digging more into more female voices in that genre
Speaker 2: of saxam Boletto, and I keep digging even more, and
Speaker 2: I've learned from them, you know, even if I've never
Speaker 2: met them before, I feel like I do in a way,
Speaker 2: like they are my teachers. In Ilea, my first album,
Speaker 2: I was coming from a big transition in my life.
Speaker 2: I was like ten years touring with my brothers with
Speaker 2: their group. I really wanted to experiment on side of
Speaker 2: me that I've always wanted to play with that Polero.
Speaker 1: Very more classic.
Speaker 2: But for me, the risky part was how to play
Speaker 2: with all that in this moment, you know, in this
Speaker 2: time where I feel very different from the songs that
Speaker 2: I listen to.
Speaker 1: You know, even though I enjoy.
Speaker 2: Them and I feel a lot listening to them, I'm
Speaker 2: in another moment, you know, from another generation, see.
Speaker 1: Is upper.
Speaker 2: So I was thinking a lot in myself, you know,
Speaker 2: as a woman, but mostly the women in my family,
Speaker 2: the women that surround me, and how normal it has
Speaker 2: been for us as women to.
Speaker 1: Struggle so much.
Speaker 2: And I think especially in relationships, you see so many
Speaker 2: abusive patterns, So yeah, maybe represents more that side of
Speaker 2: me of just like confronting the reality that the tough
Speaker 2: reality of what it is to be a woman.
Speaker 1: In this world. But a kilos.
Speaker 4: Do well.
Speaker 2: In Almadura, I wanted to play with my roots as
Speaker 2: a Puerto Rican Caribbean.
Speaker 6: So knowing body though.
Speaker 2: Nauba, I've always enjoyed so so much like percussion. I
Speaker 2: love percussion and I love rhythm, and for me, it
Speaker 2: was connected to the way that I was feeling as well.
Speaker 2: When I was creating that album, I was very angry
Speaker 2: towards Hurraca Maria, but it was like kind of disgusting
Speaker 2: to see the way the US government as well as
Speaker 2: the Puerto Rican government were managing the whole situation.
Speaker 1: You felt not taken care of at all.
Speaker 2: And it was like a big shock for us as
Speaker 2: a country to just realize that, Okay, like we are
Speaker 2: not going to receive the help or the attention that
Speaker 2: we were expecting, so we need to find a way.
Speaker 1: To do it on our own.
Speaker 2: And that's what we did in Hurakan Marian That's what
Speaker 2: we keep doing.
Speaker 1: Like I just needed to let all.
Speaker 2: That out and and that's what I did with with Alma,
Speaker 2: finding a way to heal myself at the same time.
Speaker 2: And for example, Contrato for me is the song that
Speaker 2: best defines the whole album.
Speaker 6: Is the way.
Speaker 1: We've been through so much.
Speaker 2: It takes away your energy and you feel like yeah,
Speaker 2: like like you're stuck, but at the same time like
Speaker 2: we have to find a way to give each other strength.
Speaker 1: I was focusing more.
Speaker 2: On the courage that I feel that we all have
Speaker 2: inside of us. That is actually what makes us react
Speaker 2: and gives us the strength and the impulse that we
Speaker 2: need to send the message that we want to send.
Speaker 2: Especially after Maria, I feel that many people felt the
Speaker 2: obligation of having to leave the country and it was
Speaker 2: very painful to watch. A Gi is a song that
Speaker 2: speaks about people that stay and people that leave their country.
Speaker 2: Nadal sakamo that it says like no one gets us
Speaker 2: out of here if here is where we were born.
Speaker 2: It's a very important phrase for me because nowadays we
Speaker 2: are really really feeling that we in Puerto Rico are
Speaker 2: being totally the plasas displaced.
Speaker 5: The dui YadA yea, the yucky, the duga ya yeah, yucky.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty, the year that we all thought was going
Speaker 2: to be amazing, incredible. I was actually going to tour,
Speaker 2: you know, with Almadura that year.
Speaker 1: Suddenly everything changed drastically in the pandemic.
Speaker 2: Like I was with myself a lot, and I couldn't
Speaker 2: go anywhere, you know, so I was just looking at
Speaker 2: the window and trying to escape, you know, from there,
Speaker 2: and composing and writing and trying to understand why I
Speaker 2: was feeling the way I'm feeling.
Speaker 1: I think that this album NA focused on on me
Speaker 1: a little, You.
Speaker 5: And suh better or not important.
Speaker 7: Te Yoda.
Speaker 4: And contra.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes when you feel so so so angry
Speaker 1: that you start crying. I don't know if that happens
Speaker 1: to you, but that happens to me a lot.
Speaker 2: And I feel that I was like in this album,
Speaker 2: each song plays with a vulnerability of mind. I feel
Speaker 2: like this album became very personal and more introspective, like
Speaker 2: for me, because like I talk about things that I
Speaker 2: was like more afraid to talk about and that sometimes
Speaker 2: we feel ashamed to speak about, but we shouldn't be
Speaker 2: because it's it's normal.
Speaker 1: It's part of life, you know.
Speaker 2: The song that for me maybe represents the whole album
Speaker 2: is ning the song that I did with Treno. It
Speaker 2: defines how I was actually feeling, you know.
Speaker 1: Lado than.
Speaker 5: Coming and so Guerda Kiren Reportaken said control.
Speaker 1: He took the song where he needed to to go.
Speaker 2: You know, it was incredible because it made it about
Speaker 2: a fight with yourself and how to end up triumphant
Speaker 2: from that fight.
Speaker 4: A consent, comment them and get them and go get
Speaker 4: the road. I never expected to have so many collaborations
Speaker 4: in this album.
Speaker 1: The whole collaboration process was very.
Speaker 6: New to me.
Speaker 2: I'm used to working on my own. It was incredible
Speaker 2: to work with other people. And the experience of hearing
Speaker 2: other colors, other textures, voices, words, you know, like another
Speaker 2: brain with you was was.
Speaker 1: An incredible experience to have. Working with ev was incredible.
Speaker 2: She was like my female reference when I thought about
Speaker 2: Regaton female singers.
Speaker 1: I mean, when I was little, like she was my
Speaker 1: only reference. She was not only just a woman doing
Speaker 1: I mean she.
Speaker 2: Was speaking from a feminine perspective and she was very
Speaker 2: firm and very straightforward about it. Lina, I still can't
Speaker 2: believe that she's in this album.
Speaker 1: For me, it is great. And also this song that
Speaker 1: for me, is so powerful, don't get.
Speaker 2: Any Natarilla comes from a Puerto Rican phrase that we
Speaker 2: use a lot in Puerto Rico. The whole phrase is
Speaker 2: nacari loriente, kind of not on with a lot of attitude,
Speaker 2: and I love that phrase. Like we sometimes you said
Speaker 2: short like la caille, or sometimes we say nakinaki. And
Speaker 2: it was like my way of transcending a little the
Speaker 2: process of making this album that was in another difficult moment,
Speaker 2: like in the pandemic, with the quarantine and all that.
Speaker 2: So for me, Nakaili is just like a way of
Speaker 2: thinking all that in a way. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not staying there the way that I
Speaker 2: protest through my music. I'm not sure how it has
Speaker 2: evolved exactly, but I'm more focused in what I believe in.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we expect change to happen quickly, and.
Speaker 1: I'm part of that, you know, sometimes I feel that way.
Speaker 1: But when I try to focus.
Speaker 2: My perspective in the changes that are really happening, we
Speaker 2: have to.
Speaker 1: Start from somewhere. That's how everything develops.
Speaker 2: And for me, I'm I think maybe has evolved a
Speaker 2: little from that. Not focusing on how little it may seem,
Speaker 2: but how powerful the change can be.
Speaker 3: This episode was produced by Julia Rocha with help from
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Lowenthal Torres. He was edited by Alejandra Salsad and
Speaker 3: mixed by Julia Caruso. The Latino USA team includes Jessica Ellis,
Speaker 3: Victoria Strada, Dominiquinestrosa, Renaldo Lean Junior, Stephanie Lebau, Andrea Lotez Crusado,
Speaker 3: Greis Luna, Lori mar Marquez, Marta Martinez, Nor Saudi and
Speaker 3: Nancy Trujillo. Penileiramirez is our co executive producer along with
Speaker 3: myself and I'm your host Marianna Posa join us again
Speaker 3: our next episode. In the meantime, I'll see all of
Speaker 3: you on all of our social media and especially on instains.
Speaker 7: Appro Latino USA is made possible in part by the
Speaker 7: Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of
Speaker 7: social change worldwide, the John D.
Speaker 1: And Catherine T.
Speaker 7: MacArthur Foundation, and the Heising Simons Foundation unlocking knowledge, opportunity
Speaker 7: and possibilities. More at hsfoundation dot org.
Speaker 1: This Acon'm gonna make basis Halse