María Becerra Wants You to Meet ‘La Nena de Argentina’
Over the last few years, María Becerra’s easy-going personality and versatile style of singing has made her a go-to collaborator in the Latin industry. She’s known for standout guest verses on songs with the likes of J Balvin, Camila Cabello, Natti Natasha, among others. But on her latest project, Becerra wants people to fully hear her.
“When you a collab, you have to adapt to the other artist and combine your identities,” she tells Rolling Stone. “You really can’t do what you’d do with your own music. And I think I needed that freedom.”
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On Thursday, the Argentine pop artist released her sophomore album La Nena de Argentina, a diverse LP that showcases the musician’s diverse sonic palate, and mature, detail-focused songwriting. The goal was to do the complete opposite of what she was used to: Instead of adjusting to other people’s styles as she’d done before, she instead locked herself (and some of her producers) in a room in Luján, Argentina and began creating.
“We made a studio with mattresses, turned on a fireplace every day — and you can even hear it on the ballad ‘Doble Vida,’” the Latin Grammy nominee says. “You can hear the crackling of the fire. Those were magical days. We were like family.”
Songs like “Perreo Furioso” and “Mandamientos” tap into the trap-reggaetón Becerra has done throughout her career, but on ballads like “Desafiando el Destino” dedicated to her parents, and “Doble Vida,” written about a friend who was cheated on, she shows off her specific, yet relatable lyricism. Plus, she experiments with “Adiós,” a trumpet-back cumbia song that drives home Becerra’s natural ability to take risks.
From her boyfriend’s backyard in Argentina, Becerra talks to Rolling Stone about finding her identity through music, writing from a deeply personal place, and creating songs that even caught the attention of Marc Anthony’s camp.
I think this album showed a sense of maturity we likely hadn’t heard from you in the past. How did you tap into that?
I’m so happy you noticed the maturity because that’s what it shows: much more maturity. I grew so much as an artist and as a human over the past year. I learned so much. I love challenging myself, I love to get out of my comfort zone, and I think I got a lot better at songwriting. It’s a much more mature project.
What things changed for you as you were making the album?
What changed is that I can go deeper into a feeling or say something, but I do it in not as basic a way as before. I don’t want to say that I did it wrong before, but before it was a little more basic because I was a little younger, so maybe I couldn’t find the way to say certain things. Now, I think you can tell when I say things more poetically, metaphorically, different, more romantic way, I could do it. When I wanted to be a little more sexual, I could do it. I’ve read so much more poetry since my last album and listened to much more music and I think you can tell.
It really shows a more vulnerable side of you. What are the songs on the album that resonate with you most today?
“Adiós,” which is a cumbia, is incredible. It’s so difficult to choose a song, but the cumbia, bachata, and pop are my favorites because they’re genres that I haven’t done in the past. I had never made a cumbia or a bachata song. It’s like getting out of my comfort zone.
Your voice on “Adiós” worked so well with the cumbia. What’s it like exploring music from other parts of Latin America and adding your own sazón to them?
It’s all a challenge because I want to make sure we do it really well. The bachata song, we recorded with musicians from the Dominican Republic. Some of Marc Anthony’s musicians who’ve been making music for years helped us out. I really can’t believe it.
People ask me if it’s a concept album, but more than an abstract concept, it’s really about me: La Nena de Argentina. All of these songs touch on who I am: the sound of my voice, my figurative voice, and how I write. That’s the concept.
I study a lot. And I’ve always been a fan of salsa, merengue, Marco Antonio Solis, Jennifer Lopez, Selena Quintanilla. My mom was always listening to them so I would get to hear different genres. There have also been really important cumbia artists from Argentina like Gilda, and Rodrigo, that have made other forms of cumbia and inspired my song “Adiós.”
If I’m going to tap into a genre I’m unfamiliar with, I’m going to make sure it’s well done.
You just name-dropped Marc Anthony so casually. What was it like for his folks to hear your music and like it?
My producer is from Ecuador and has been making music for a long time in Miami, with all these people that I’m telling you about and for a long time, he wanted them to listen to my bachata song because they know a lot about bachata and I sent it to them by email to see what they thought. They listened to it and couldn’t believe it: they congratulated him and loved it. That was a pleasant surprise really.
I can imagine! Let’s talk about the lyrics to your song “Inspiradora.” You use female pronouns. What’s it like to sing about a female relationship as a bisexual woman?
I think representation is so important: in TV, movies, music. It’s a part of who I am and just because I’m in a heterosexual relationship now, I have to sing just about men. For me, since I had a consciousness, I’ve liked both girls and boys. I like singing about my real experience. It’s something that is part of me and I love when girls tell me they feel represented by what I’m singing.
It’s about time these songs were normalized.
100%. It needs to stop being a taboo — and lots of the new generations are getting rid of those prejudices, like women singing openly about pleasure, sex, and other things.
Let’s talk about your song “Doble Vida.” What was it like singing about something so personal?
Well, the story of “Doble Vida” isn’t about me, it’s about something that happened to someone very very close to me. It’s a very sad, strong story. And I know that so many people will feel identified with it so I approach it from that perspective while trying to be as respectful as possible. I want to be as thoughtful as I can as I talk about those pure feelings. I asked this person to tell me every single detail of what happened to them. We were in the studio talking through the story, I love the characters we create in music. That’s where that song started: we started making a little story.
Sorry for assuming it was about you! Is it difficult to sing about other people’s stories?
I love telling stories. Really, when someone starts telling me about their ex, I swear I love hearing the drama of other people. I am so dramatic and I love chisme but really I get so much inspiration from other stories. There’s also a song on the album I wrote for my parents, it’s super intimate and sweet. Everything is based on true stories: real, but slightly more dramatic.
Talk to me about the song you wrote for your parents.
It’s called “Desafiando el Destino.” My parents have yet to hear it, they don’t know it’s about them and I want them to see it with the video because I took videos from my childhood and when my mom was pregnant to show them. I literally wanted to cry watching the video and I know my family will too.
Your single “Automatico” and “Mandamientos” are so different from some of the other songs. But they all work together to make a cohesive project.
I really tried to showcase my versatility. They all have that same pain, the same “mother feeling” that connects all of the songs. I feel that way. That’s my identity. My voice has this natural pain sound to it, like suffering, and I love it. I love being able to have that in my music.
What changed for you since dropping Animál?
With my last album, there was more pressure to release a project quickly. I had been dropping music for two years during the pandemic and then my career went boom. So many people were asking me to tour but I didn’t have a project to perform so I dropped it to have music to perform. It was rushed and it’s not that we didn’t work hard on it but this time I had time to sit with it and focus. This time, I had more tools and got to work with more people with different ideas so it went great.
You’ve had Animal and also a ton of collaborations with top-notch artists like Camila Cabello, J Balvin, Natti Natasha. But there’s no one featured on your project.
I’m blessed to be able to collaborate with artists with longstanding careers. They’ve taken me under their wing and taught me so much. That was all a part of my learning. But I felt that this was a time to focus on my solo project and show people what I can do.
When you work on a collab, you have to adapt to the other artist and combine your identities. Sometimes you’ll suggest something and the other artist isn’t into it. You can’t really do what you’d do on your own song. I think I needed that. That’s why I decided not to.
This interview was translated from Spanish.
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