María has lost three of her most loved people in 12 years. Once every four years and always in the month of February. “It can’t be a coincidence. Life has sent me this message so that I can become strong,” he assumes. His father, the flamenco singer Fernando Terremoto, died in 2010, in his creative prime, when he was 39 years old. She was only 11. In 2014 her grandfather, the soccer player (for Betis and the Spanish team, and Cup winner in 1977) Antonio Benítez, died at the age of 62. And in 2018, her grandmother, María, her “teacher”, at 63. Three premature deaths that shook a sensitive girl who did not know how to manage so much absence. María Terremoto has just turned 25 years old and is preparing to bury the anger and sorrow that has been tied to her body for years. “I had a lot of things stuck that became traumas. “I have removed all the burdens that I had in my heart,” he says about the goal of Manifest, album that will be published on January 31 and from which two songs can already be heard, Soul do not leave the body y You took away my torments.
Manifest starts with a chill, To death, where Mary describes the situation and challenges the unchallengeable: “Death came to my house, and toíto he took it. / He left me alone with my mother, my mother of my heart… Oh, I will read. / How do you come and take what was most valuable? / We have pending accounts. / You do not win the game against me, because my god is greater than your somber evil.” The song impacts not only because of the text, but also because of María’s wild way of singing, accompanied only by knuckles hitting a table.
María has flamenco genes: Terremoto de Jerez was her grandfather, and Fernando Terremoto was her father, both singers of strength, passion and depth. She continues the line. They say that the “woe” of the Earthquake contains a unique echo. The singer meets with EL PAÍS in Madrid. She comes from Seville, where she grew up and lives, although she was born in Jerez.
It is not difficult for María to enter into intimate topics; In fact, he is grateful: “I made this album precisely to tell my story.” He remembers the last time he spoke to his father. “It is not a pleasant image, because the tumor was consuming him. He weighed just 40 kilos; He, who had always been chubby… But something happened… It was about 20 minutes and he, despite how fragile he was, tried to make that time nice for me: he played jokes on me and ate a little, although he couldn’t anymore. Shortly after saying goodbye he left. “That has been my cross all my life.”
There is a much more edifying memory with his father, years before, when Fernando Terremoto was already being treated with chemotherapy and received a tribute at his club, the Fernando Terremoto Flamenco Cultural Association, in Jerez. There, crowded with flamencos who came to say goodbye to the singer, María got up, with her dress and her glasses, and sang to her father. You can watch the moment on YouTube, highly recommended, and see how that ten-year-old girl was already singing, and see the father dancing while the child screams: “I love you so much, I will read, I will read.”
The parents of María, an only child, separated when she was seven years old. The little girl and her mother, Encarni, went to live in Triana (Seville) with her maternal grandparents: he, one of the most charismatic players in the history of Betis, and she, a flamenco fan “who sang and danced wonderfully.” ”. “My grandmother María was my teacher. He taught me what singing means, the importance of being an artist, the history of flamenco. Everything…” says the young woman. Part of the process to overcome so much loss was to become independent when she was only 16 years old. “I had become a person full of anger and sorrow, and I couldn’t channel it. I needed to run away, find my way, because I was in a hole,” he explains. He was accompanied by his partner, the singer José El Pechuguita. María became a mother at 20 years old and repeated at 23. Her daughter, who was born during the pandemic, is called María, like her grandmother, and the boy, Fernando, like his father.
His new album, the second of his career, tells of this entire process. From the opening, where he challenges death, to You took away my torments, dedicated to your partner, or They paint my life in color, intended for their children. A work that tells his story, a journey where he experienced fear, sorrow, pain, confusion, consolation, love, doubts and, finally, joy. “I needed to relieve all my feelings. Not only telling it to my therapist, but also to the public and letting off steam in the form of music, which is what I love the most,” he explains.
The musician who accompanies her on this trip is the guitarist Yerai Cortés, who stars in the recent documentary by C. Tangana The flamenco guitar of Yerai Cortés. “I worked with Yerai at the Círculo Flamenco in Madrid and we connected. His touch is rancid, old, and at the same time fresh.” Together they compose a work with the sourdough of traditional flamenco, but searching for other sounds and atmospheres. “I have a vision beyond flamenco, because I like all types of music. Pure flamenco is already done, there is nothing to invent. But starting from there we can continue to advance and innovate. Flamenco is in my veins, and I cannot live without it, but I am a young girl who likes to discover new things. I need to free myself from the chains imposed by the purist sector. That I say that I like Beyoncé or Rosalía is annoying within the orthodox sectors of flamenco.” And he adds categorically: “If there are other tools that we have to use to make flamenco visible, even if I jump into a pool without water and full of rocks, I am going to use those tools. I don’t doubt it.”
Con Manifest María Terremoto joins the trend of young cantaoras/singers who show the path along which this art progresses. María José Llergo, Soleá Morente and Ángeles Toledano also raise their voices there. Next year, with the album already released, María will present it in concert, with dates already closed in the city where she was born, Jerez (February 1), and Madrid (May 24).
The interview ends and María jumps on her cell phone. “Sorry, I just want to know how my children are doing,” he apologizes. Their partner has taken them to daycare and school. Everything in order.