Formerly Queen or Mother of trap, La Zowi (Zoe Jeanneau Canto, 1993) has expanded her domain by calling herself La Reina del sur, that is the name of her first and recently released album, which she presents this Saturday at Sónar (SonarCar, 2:05 p.m.). She has not lost an ounce of strength or been corseted, on the contrary: the pioneer continues to announce her independence and her unmatched power. The business is yours.
Zowi has gone from being the Queen of the trap to the Queen of the South. Did she want to show that her range is much wider?
The fan is something that I have always shown. It gets me a lot into trap because it’s what I started with and it’s something very typical of my music. Also because there are few women who do trap, especially in Spain. The Queen of the South thing is a bit because of what it represents [personaje de libros y series]: an independent woman, a fighter, who has gone through a complicated life and, in the end, ends up triumphing. A woman with power and who runs her own business. With that I feel identified. oh! And in a world of men.
Is the trap as movement and scene still beating?
I do trap because for me it is an attitude. It was to be expected that in Spain, being a totally American thing, it would be like a passing fad. I notice how the trap is changing and evolving towards other genres and it is staying more to one side. When I started I did it because it beat me. It is a way to feel very comfortable and to be able to express what La Zowi is. I do it 100% because it represents me and because it identifies me. And it’s better if it’s not totally booming because I feel more comfortable.
It has evolved in terms of sound, it’s a less ‘punk’ record. Do you feel that you must change, evolve?
Maybe I do feel a bit of social pressure because of what it means to evolve, become more professional… Because I really like ‘punkism’. But in sound and in all areas of life it is good to evolve. I myself like to listen to a record that can be played well, feels good, it’s a question of quality. But I still feel the essence as something organic, something punk, something that continues to come from the heart and without much intention… The one who likes it well and the one who doesn’t, no. Heart work.
In this evolution, have you hesitated to change or soften the essence that materializes in your cry of presentation: “La Zowi, bitch!”?
It has crossed my mind because the goal is for more people to want and understand my music. But, really, if I did, I would lose the essence of La Zowi and, in the end, what people like is that. I don’t think it’s what my fans expect or what I feel. It’s going to happen before more people understand my music and get used to explicit language than I soften it, really.
On the album cover you can see La Zowi who has just stabbed someone. Who or what has she ended up with?
That cover is very ambiguous. For me it means rebirth. The dagger can refer to backstabbing that I have received in the past. And that I now have the dagger in my hand, that I am in control of my life… And the blood was not attributed to a crime, but to a rebirth, a start from scratch. It can also represent the past, the struggle and what I have been able to go through in my life.
This album has been created in a period of important life change with, for example, changes of residence. Do you think that has influenced that?
The change has been very important since I was born. My mother was a restless ass. I’m used to moving every 3-4 years. But yes, clearly a lot has happened in this time, including globally with the pandemic. With what has happened we have all made important personal growth.
Has the distance between Zoe and La Zowi gotten bigger?
Could be. It may have dissociated more over time and before they were more mixed. But in the end La Zowi is me, I write my lyrics, the character comes from me, my mother who gave birth to me recognizes La Zowi within Zoe… But she continues to be an alter ego.
One of the most forceful messages on the album is that of La Zowi independent in terms of love, showing herself as someone who has completely stopped trusting men. Was it clear that she wanted to highlight it?
It came out alone. I link it a lot to my independence, to learn to live alone, to take full control of my life, loneliness as a life project… And with respect to men, I try not to generalize too much, but yes, to being single at least. By feeling emotionally and financially and in all aspects independent. That is something that I wanted to highlight and transmit. Life is governed a lot in life as a couple, I myself have been in a relationship for many years, and, suddenly, feeling that independence… It is something that is seen as bad and, really, for me it is one more feeling of power than failure.
He has always liked to keep up to date with young people, with what is happening. Have you realized what she has come to influence?
It is something that is difficult to realize. Sometimes you hear words and think: ‘I could swear I made this up’. But yes, I cannot deny that I feel that I have inaugurated this movement in Spain. If I had not existed, it would have happened anyway, but yes, I notice it in many things. Above all, what we have transmitted is this: that we were ordinary kids, from the streets, from the neighborhood, with nothing, and we started making music and ended up creating a movement. Saying: ‘I dare and I’m going to do it’.
four years ago he said in an interview with this newspaper that she felt alone in this. Is that feeling still the same?
I still feel alone but on another level. I do think that at the movement level we are already a few, and if you see it worldwide, there are a lot of artists. They are leaving. Yes, it is true that I feel that in Spain, as in the industry in general, there is individualism and a competitiveness that makes you feel a little alone. More and more girls are coming out who express themselves like me, transmit the same as me, but that’s not why we’re united, really. That’s why we don’t have contact. And I think that needs to be matured a bit. I don’t feel lonely at all like before, I no longer feel the need to stop saying certain words… Because there are more and more people who feel the need to express themselves like this, freely, but it does seem like we don’t know each other. And we are not so many as not to have identified us.
Related news
How do you live with the responsibility of being an icon?
It is one of the parts that I like the most about what I do. What prevails in me is not my numbers, but that I am a more extensive character. I’m not going to tell you that I’m a legend, but I do make a different type of music than the most commercial, fastest… That gives me a respect that gives me a lot of strength and that I really like to have. There are many people who know me more for the character that I am or for the movement that I have helped to create than for my own music and that, speaking in silver, is more difficult to collect. Being an icon or an image at the level of thought, of movement, is not paid. The weight is that I feel that I have given my life, my freedom, to be a random person…