Indigenous musician sings trap to empower women
By Mariana Gonzalez-Marquez
Guadalajara, Mexico, Dec 4 (EFE).- Singing in Quechua language while fusing Andean music with urban rhythms like trap, Peruvian artist Renata Flores underlines her indigenous identity and advocates freedom and female empowerment.
The magazine Hola! has named the singer as one of the 100 most influential Latina women of 2021.
Flores, a 20-year-old who fuses the traditional culture of her country with rap, trap and regueton, comes on stage dressed in fragments of Peru’s traditional costume that combines with black tights and branded shoes.
In the background the sounds of electronic samplers are mixed with the notes of the zampona, a wind instrument originating from the Andes mountain range.
The lyrics of her songs take the audience by surprise at the Music Forum of the International Book Fair on Saturday in Guadalajara, which this year has Peru as a guest country of honor.
In Quechua, one of his country’s 47 languages, Flores sings of wanting to dream and laugh “qam Hina” (like you) and defending the right to education and non-discrimination.
She tells of the feats of the women who defended the Inca people agaiinst the Spanish ‘conquistadores’ and also of those who were part of the independence movement of her country, which became a soverign nation 200 years ago.
Before she went on stage, Flores told EFE in an interview that her music wants to rescue her mother tongue, which is losing popularity among young people.
“I want children and young people to listen to the traditional language, there are many who are losing this identity and this pride of feeling the music in Quechua because the parents do not speak it. My parents did not speak it with me and I was curious to know what they were saying among themselves,” she said in an interview.
Flores grew up between music and the activism of her mother Patricia Rivera, who runs the Southern Cultural Association in her native Ayacucho, and where she works for the development of children and young people through artistic projects.
Since her teens, Flores has written her own songs. Her inspiration was American singer Nina Simone.
“Many of us are leaving behind the prejudices of language, of what we are and (…) from where we come, of our roots and ancestors,” she concluded.
The singer is promoting her new material, Isqun, which in Quechua means number 9, the “mirror of the soul”, with which she hopes to go on her first tour of Latin America in 2022.
The book fair takes place from Nov.27 to Dec.5 with the participation of 600 writers from 46 countries, more than 3,000 professionals, 255 exhibitors and 240,000 book titles in 10,000 square meters of exhibition space. EFE
mg/sc
