Friday, March 29

Free Ladies, inventors of the Argentine cumbia villera, makes a tremendous tour that is not talked about


A gang of fifteen advances decidedly along the street that leads to the Apolo room. Four of them wear T-shirts with the phrase “I love you but I’m a bard”. On the back of the T-shirt, the dates of the Spanish tour of Damas Gratis. The fifteen are Argentines, of course. One asks the other how was the concert on Monday. “Freak. My legs still hurt, ”he celebrates. It’s been 48 hours and he still hasn’t recovered. But here it is, on the way to the third Damas Gratis concert in Barcelona. He is not the only one who will see them two nights this week.

The concert hasn’t started yet in the hall, but the audience sings along to all the songs played by the Colombian disc jockeys Guacamayo Tropical, whether they are cumbias villeras (those born in slums) or the Bullfighter from The Fabulous Cadillacs. The temperature of the room will be multiplied by six when the concert starts. Free Ladies are infinitely more popular than Cadillacs ever were. The closest thing to Maradona that Argentine popular music has given. Practically a religion, whose supreme pontiff is the singer and keyboardist Pablo Lescano. On one occasion, the Argentine journalist Agustín Gennoni described him as “Dr. Dre argento”, that is, the Argentine version of the creator of the Californian gangsta rap sound of the 90s. In a certain way, Damas Gratis are like The Skatalites, inventors undisputed of a genre: in his case, the cumbia villera.

Raise your hand if you are a journalist

In Barcelona alone, Damas Gratis dispatched 4,000 tickets, all of which they put on sale for the three dates at the beginning of the week: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Some fans have seen all three passes. Others have queued at the door of the room since noon. Added to those in Madrid, Alicante, Palma and Malaga, in one week they will have sold around ten thousand tickets. A social and musical phenomenon of a magnitude hardly comparable. Once again, the Spanish music press has been conspicuous by its absence. New sample of obstinate disconnection with the musical reality of the country. Argentines, villeros, cumbieros, suburban, sweaty… Do not care. No coverage for a group with such enormous convening power and such relevance as inventors of a genre.

Cumbia villera is a derivation of Colombian cumbia, closer, in fact, to Peruvian cumbia; slower pace, with a chac-chaca-chac fatigued, that precisely because of the tired beat that marks the bass and because of that listless strumming of the güiro percussion instrument, as if dragging its feet, it takes even the most left behind with it. It is popular music at its finest. With a cheap bill (keyboard, effects…) and lyrics that sublimate life in impoverished neighborhoods and villas and that speak of unemployment and poverty, alcohol and drugs, common crime and government crime, police and posh. Sex is also present, often from a macho point of view, pulling the troglodyte.

It is hard to imagine that such an instrument kitsch and reviled as the keytar has become an emblem and detonator of the explosive performances of Damas Gratis. It should be noted that Lescano’s keytar has a machine gun drawn on it. will be a key gun, then. And, when the group shoots the most emblematic titles of their songbook, several cannons on the edge of the stage shoot fireworks and smoke. What happens is that all the songs of Damas Gratis (and some of his previous group, Flor de Piedra, and even his compatriot La Mona Giménez) are high points of his concerts. The public chants absolutely all the lyrics from the first minute. Also lololoea keyboard melodies. Sometimes it is easier to distinguish them by reading the lips of a spectator than by listening to Lescano. The kid works without a fixed repertoire. He improvises on the fly and strings together songs knowing they all work.

grinding cumbias

A Free Ladies concert is a potpourri with dozens, dozens, dozens and dozens of ultra-popular hymns. An hour and a half grinding cumbias villeras with little pause. But, although the cumbia villera is the base of the stew, they have also been integrating more skatalytic titles, more reggaeton and more raggamuffin. And the same they sneak you a sketch to greater glory villera of Beethoven (For Elisa) that gobble up the Suffers Mamon by Hombres G, a posh anthem renamed The super cheetah. Of course, this is by no means the most celebrated song at their concerts these days. Even if you are in Spain, if you go to see Damas Gratis you are always in Argentina. Whatever Google Maps says.



A Free Ladies concert is a world final. Argentina against Argentina. Argentina will win. And the room will be the brave bar. In Apolo, the public climbed on the benches of the room. To the railings. On the shoulders of those who could. And to the streetlights of the premises if it was necessary. Some took out their cell phones to film the concert and others to film themselves at the concert. Some waved flags from Argentina and others from Chile. Some were strategically hung upstairs in full view of the entire audience and the band. There was one with an image of Maradona presiding over the left flank. And on the track, flags and jerseys of soccer teams from half of South America. A dehydrated guy waved a T-shirt with the legend The Return of the Boss. No, it wasn’t Springsteen. It was from Shrimp. And the temperature rose. And flew some beer. And he was sweating more and more. And some were shirtless. And there were some tears.

And the tonsils red hot, they didn’t let out a single verse. “Look at how lazy is in this dance / All finished off with their hands in the air”. “Raise your hand if you want to smoke / Raise your hand if you want to drink”. “Laura / When you dance you always see your thong”. “Your eyes are red / Your old lady doesn’t know what you smoke.” “Crap politicians / They stole / The little that was left in Argentina”. “You are a button / I have never seen a police officer as bitter as you.” “The secret is knowing how to drink / Don’t drink, if you don’t know how to drink”. “I feel like dying / I’m dizzy / I want to live under anesthesia.” “And in this corner / I only have to take / Aspirin, aspirin.” “I don’t mind dying / Open the cell for me, I want to leave.” For some reason, perhaps due to Lescano’s confusion or knowing that this is one of his most celebrated songs in and out of prison, The pavilion owners it will ring twice. It was also chanted without fear of aphonia and detune You will miss me, version of the Mexican group Banda MS by Sergio Lizárraga. So successful is the original from the Sinaloans that it is already close to 500 million views on YouTube. So successful is the version of Damas Gratis that Lescano took it up again in the encore despite having already played it barely half an hour before.



These days the closest thing to a version has been seen premium de Damas Gratis: two percussionists, trumpet, bass, guitar, backing vocalist, projections, pyrotechnics, smoke… On their tour eight years ago, everything was more austere. Fewer musicians and less public, at least when passing through L’Hospitalet. That time only 600 followers attended Salamandra. Few people for a group already so famous then. It turns out that Free Ladies had hired another performance behind the scenes at a nightclub 30 kilometers away. That night in October 2014 they gave two passes. Nothing unusual for a Pablo Lescano who, in his years as a keyboardist for the group Amar Azul, came to add three thousand performances.

Those were a few Free Ladies in fits and starts, unable to keep up with the rhythm of a concert that slowed down every time someone went on stage to be photographed with Pablito. This time, it has been possible to see some Free Checkers roller version. Some professionals of debauchery. A villera steamroller. Result: party without ups and downs, jets of champagne and sweat, rounds (open spaces in the center of the room) that centrifuged everyone who got inside and an overflowing collection of songs and unforgettable scenes. That which is so often described as an unrepeatable concert. But it has happened night after night.



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