• Submitted by: manso
• Editorial Articles
• 11 / 07 / 2010

---

By: Elizabeth Lopez Corzo.  From the same garage that saw the birth of the songs included in “Noble Extremist”, Buena Fe’s and Frank Delgado’s last album. The launch of the album is scheduled on a big concert next Saturday 13 at La Tropical.  

I confess I had heard rumors about the disk, people commented on some of the songs that already raise some controversy (The Sparrow or Cubañolito) due to the social issues they approach, a feature frequently seen in the style of these artists. Certainly many will be surprised just like I was because after you listen to it for the first time, you will return to it and it won't be specifically for those songs but for other beautiful songs. I mean “I must be Happy", “Don't Save Yourself", "Pieces of Love" and "Crazy for you" which intoxicate us with softness of unrequited love, of the passion of happiness… of a swarm of feelings floating on their own in the album and fills us with the spirit of the authors.
 
Although these songs and others of the album have well written lyrics, those that easily reach the public, their value also lies in a special sonority very close to troubadours.  
 
“It’s an album we owed to ourselves from the beginning because since we enter the industry of music we followed the pop-rock trend and now this CD is more acoustic, it was actually recorded in a very crafty way. It sounds like the troubadours from the 80’s, of which we nurtured; hence we try to follow that print". In “Noble Extremists” the lyrics are so well written they sound by themselves.  
 
This is the result of the meeting of two different aesthetic, but that ultimately look for the same path of poetry. Like the first verses read, here we speak of an island with its loves, failures, dreams, and realities. Far beyond the romanticism this disk was an adventure for both parts.  
 
Like Frank Delgado said in his work there are ghosts that surround him in a certain period of time. That is the case of "E gorrion", "Afuera", "Melesio tenia razon” and "Cubañolito", but the songs have a life of their own.
   
“It’s too pretentious to attempt to give messages to the public", says the troubadour, that steppe wolf of the Tropics that sometimes you don’t know if he is speaking seriously or just joking, but who is a great poet that knows his society and love.
 
However never one of his albums or of Buena Fe leaves the auditory unalterable. As for the band, Israel said that although his intention is not being complete right neither being the spokesman of anything, it’s clear that the songs create an opinion in people and that’s a good sign.  
 
“We don't want to be right about anything, that’s what scientists are for; an artist should throw his truths to the wind with kindness and beauty."
 
Noble Extremists has generated many reactions mainly with "Cubañolito", but it’s actually a humorous vision of reality, is fun, says Israel. In general the recording of the album was something like that, kind of a game that became serious but still an adventure. Even the illustrations on the cover have the seal of maestro Juan Padron so it couldn’t be more Cuban.  The "extremists" thing comes because Buena Fe belongs to Guantanamo and Frank Delgado from Pinar del Rio, Cuba’s both ends.
 
Talking with the main characters of this story, we learnt a bit more on how this idea was born and of some projects of these artists
 
Frank Delgado, this is a peculiar disk in your career. How was the idea born?
 
It was not any tactics or strategy. I listened tot the album "Catalejo" and I liked it a lot. I had several songs that didn't have lyrics yet and it seemed very good for them, I imagined the boys singing them. I gave Israel one and he came back with the song recorded, I found it fabulous, the song was ripe, the only thing missing was my voice. We did it and it worked well on the radio.
 
I had other music that needed lyrics and Israel brought them back at once with his proposals and Yoel’s harmonic changes that worked well. With several songs, we decided to make a full album. That’s how it was, first playing then seriously.
 
I liked very much how everything went. Though we have age differences the same ghosts hang around us, we coincide in many things, we won't become “intimate enemies” as it happened with Fito and Sabina when they recorded their disk together.  
 
None of your albums are known to be recorded with the industry in Cuba…  
 
I had never recorded a disk in Cuba and I had two recorded this year, the other one is a compilation (“Frank Delgado en vivo”), and there’s another scheduled for next year ("Ustedes los trovadores no saben nada de la vida") with Bis Music.
 
With this album before the CD was launched everybody already had it, you know how things work around here… we premiered the disk at a concert in Varadero a few days ago and since the first song: "Afuera", people were already singing it. I was shocked to listen that songs like “No te salves” which is harmoniously complex, people sang it too. I had never obtained results so fast with an album. Everything has worked out perfectly.
 
Israel, after this experience with Frank Delgado, do you plan to follow the idea with other artists?
 
Yes. For our next album "Pi (3.14)" that comes out next January, we have guest artists, it’s a surprise. After this experience we have thought of making another album together with another artist. The idea is to record a disk of us every year and another one shared, always following a troubadouresque line, although we don’t want to be chained down either. We want to make these ideas a reality to achieve new products that is an album that is not of another author neither of us only, but something different.
 
Buena Fe duo is among the most productive young musicians today, in fact Frank Delgado who is a great minstrel asked you the lyrics to you. From where do you get so many ideas?
 
The truth is I don’t know either. I think is of working as crazy, put great zeal on what we do, read, study a lot. In my case since I compose, I assume work like priesthood, like an existential joy, I live my whole time working because it makes me happy. Maybe being always active has trained our senses, it gives us certain tactics to know how to guide the ideas.
 
In X Alfonso’s last disk, "Civilization", we also share several songs and some of them I wrote. Pedrito Calvo asked me some songs and I also worked with him. Truth is that I compose a lot.  

Buena Fe is what I mean to say but I write of everything I feel, what I know, what surrounds me, the most personal experiences that is what is included in Buena Fe’s repertoire.

I am not a poet who writes a verse and that already says everything, in my case I need music to complete me. And working with music of other authors is enriching because it’s like fertilizing our ideas.
 
Actually writing is not a work for me, I swear is a pleasure, when I have a good idea I spend a week happy, I sing the song over and over, and when it becomes popular sometimes it bores me a little.
 
What do you think it happens among the youths and the smart song done in Cuba today?
 
I think that the most important thing is to keep this song alive that gets rich, and walks different paths that join in the human being. I don't want to be anything’s voice, it’s already quite difficult to be the voice of oneself. I don't work to be understood, I rather make people feel. If our youth finds a song that makes them think the objective is attained whether they accept it or deny it, the best thing is that sets the thought in motion. In my case, I do like to leave some kind of macro-message in each disk although each song has its individuality.
 
In this disk which would be the macro-message?
 
In this album is more complicated because it’s between two groups but it has the idea of the 80’s: we are upset, but we are happy; we don't have a thousand things, we make mistakes, we are imperfect but we are happy. Sometimes happiness is not so far but next to you and we can’t see it, it lies in enjoying the small things.
 
Notice that Cubans, good people of this country are still thinking under the patterns of the 80’s: the wages are still almost the same, they don't pay off, but people still go to work; and in the way of thinking and educating children there’s part of that spirit of the 80’s. The spirit of knowing that the way to things is still come what may and keep forward. This disk feeds on that. This disk is an invitation of our victories and a celebration of our defeats.  
 
Besides the presentation concert in La Tropical, do you plan to make a tour?
 
It’s difficult because we are two bands (Frank and us), each with their artistic activities, hence we will make some presentations.

But in January we will make a national tour with the new album "Pi (3.14)" that will have the Center of Marti Studies and the Cultural Society Jose Marti as companions because in the album there’s a song dedicated to Marti. We are planning to present in the Central Park of Havana and make it as cheap as possible. We are leaving with Pablo Milanes on a tour through Spain by the end of November.  

Source: Cubasi Translation Staff