María José Llergo knows the key to her future is ingrained in the past. Demonstrating her fierce connection to her Andalusian roots, Llergo’s debut album Ultrabelleza, explores themes of home, tradition and family.
Her music is distinctly personal, interweaving the classic flamenco she was raised with alongside contemporary electronic flourishes. Following her album release in October 2023, Llergo is gearing up for a seven-date U.S. tour in March, including stops in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia.
Hailing from Pozoblanco, a small town in Andalusia's agricultural heartlands, Llergo's musical foundation is as authentic as it gets. The southern Spanish region, known as the cradle of traditional flamenco, profoundly influences her sound. Her grandfather, a vegetable farmer, taught her how to sing while they worked the fields. This connection to the earth deeply permeates her music with a feeling of grit, persistence and self-respect.
On the album’s title track, she sings in Spanish a reassuring ode to a questioning child, "God himself/ With the water and the wind made you like this/ There is nothing wrong with you." In ‘Aprendiendo a Volar’ (Learning how to fly), she reflects on a view: "I see all the peaks, the summits, from my window/ So far from me that I have not dreamed of reaching them."
Llergo's journey to success mirrors the lofty peaks she sings about. Following her training at the prestigious Catalonia School of Music, she released her debut EP Sanción in 2020. A year later, she made her mark on the European live music platform COLORS, when she performed a viral YouTube session which has amassed over 1.5 million views.
Ultrabelleza took Llergo’s budding stardom to the next level. She gained critical acclaim and a substantial fanbase in the U.S., which led to her highly anticipated American tour. Splitting her time between Pozoblanco, Barcelona, and Madrid, Llergo continues to pursue her musical career with passion and dedication.
GRAMMY.com spoke with Llergo over Zoom about her unique brand of flamenco, her debut U.S. tour, and why her roots define her music.
This interview, originally conducted in Spanish, has been translated into English and edited for clarity and length.
Your music is very much tied to place; you are a trained flamenco singer, a genre from Andalusia, where you grew up. How would you describe the region to someone who has not been?
Andalusia is the word "andar", walk, and "luz", light. Our people are called Andaluces; the lights that walk. It is a rich place: intellectually, it’s the home of Federico Garcia Lorca, Vicente Aleixandre, Antonio Machado, and Picasso.
We have our very own way of living, very different to the rest of Spain. For centuries it was Arab, strategically located between Africa, Europa, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It has always been a cultural bridge, which is why there is so much art here.
Andalusia is the cradle of flamenco and has a very deep-rooted musical culture that I identify with my style of music. Even though I combine soul, hip-hop, and R&B, flamenco will always be in my voice.
Everyone should experience Andalusia, it’s so beautiful. What I like about doing interviews, and being able to travel to the United States, is to show Andalusians for what we really are, not stereotypes.
Andalusia has weathered tough times. It’s one of Spain’s poorest regions, and, as you say, often gets reduced to stereotypes by fellow Spaniards.
They make fun of it. So, art is a way to dignify ourselves and reflect who we are: a people of culture. I think any Andalusian who has had to leave their region has to prove their worth because we are undervalued.
You talk a lot about family in your songs, like "Mi Nombre," which is an ode to your grandparents. Why is family so important to you?
I learned to sing thanks to my grandfather, Pepe. I was with him when he worked the land. I played with the stones while he watered, and dug furrows in the ground to let the water pass. He explained to me how the fruits grew, and he sang through my childhood and adolescence.
I accompanied my grandfather in the field and learned what it means to work the land and eat what you farm yourself. I think that was the best school to learn about effort and never giving up.
He always sang and art was present in everything he did. For example, if one day he had a problem with a neighbor, he would compose a lyric and sing about it in the traditional flamenco style. I would listen to him and imitate him. We sang the songs together.
When I knew the songs well, my grandfather encouraged me to play with my voice and add my personal touch. And so I opened other avenues to create my vocal play, just like how water plays with stones when it tries to make a new path.
You seem very proud to be from Pozoblanco, where you grew up. What’s it like being from such a rural place?
Everyone works in farming. My family [lives] off agriculture, and that’s why I have an innate way of being with nature. I’ve always cared for nature, just like my grandparents.
I observe the changes and feel a connection. For example, looking at the sky at night, the animal tracks left in the earth, or the changing of the seasons. That soft, beautiful darkness of the plowed field, or when the grass dries, it turns an intense blonde color that sometimes seems, when you see it from afar, like the sand of a beach that never ends.
Everything I do has an impact, just like how I am affected by everything that happens around me.
You speak with such beautiful imagery; I’m thinking of how challenging it will be to do your words justice when I translate our conversation into English.
How beautiful! I guarantee that it’ll be easy. The meaning is the same, it’s just the path that changes.
That brings me to your lyrics, which are deeply poetic and highly visual. How are you inspired?
I’m a very sensitive person. I just get inspired by feeling, creating art is my way of venting all the emotions. I love writing poetry, and I think that has helped my songwriting. I always have a little book with me to write thoughts down, but I record voice notes on my smartwatch.
I live next to a river. Sometimes I walk alongside it and sing, recording myself. I’ve thought of many songs that way.
Flamenco is a traditional style of Spanish music, but is it something still important to the younger generation in Andalusia today?
Flamenco is our DNA. We’re fortunate to have grown up listening to flamenco. The story of our grandparents, great-grandparents and ancestors is in every word. Flamenco is our classical music.
That being said, flamenco is very broad and is present in all of [southern] Spain. Andalusia has a difficult history with many changes and invasions. It has welcomed so many different cultures that the region has formed a unique personality.
The lyrics of flamenco tell our story. For example, during the Franco dictatorship, there was a time when music was prohibited. It was a tool of liberation, where people talked of their "duquela," their sorrows, in the language of Caló, which is the language of the Spanish and Portuguese Romani.
Andalusia has the largest Iberian Romaní population in Spain, for which we are fortunate because they have the merit of making flamenco what it is today, without a doubt.
So, of course, it is a very diverse region — not always understood, often despised — but so rich on a musical level. It transcends generations. It has a truth so deep that it never, ever expires.
It reminds us where we come from, so it teaches us where we should go. It connects us with the past, but also provides clues to the future. Flamenco is eternal.
NPR and Pitchfork have written about your own Romani heritage…
They wrote that but didn’t ask me specifically about it. I define myself as an Andalusian. My ancestry is part of my private life and I don’t think I have to justify my actions through lineage.
Thanks for clarifying that! We’ve spoken at length about the flamenco elements of your music, but you also have a very contemporary feel. You’ve worked with producers like Knox Brown (who has collaborated with artists including Beyoncé, Stormzy, and H.E.R.), for example.
What you hear in terms of my accent, or those flamenco elements of my music — that’s my roots. What you hear in terms of production, experimentation, and electro — that’s my wings. We can say that my music is the connection of my roots and my wings.
I look to musically express what I see in the natural world. For example, how a bird’s wing cuts through the air. Sometimes I can’t recreate that organically, so I find it synthetically. That's when I turn to electronica.
I am using the musical resources that I have at my disposal in the time in which I live to translate my vision of the world into something tangible, which are my songs.
What contemporary music do you listen to?
Well, I’m in love with Fred Again.. I think Kendrick Lamar’s Element is sublime … I’m listening to a lot of Afrobeats at the moment: Rema, Simi, Ayra Starr, Burna Boy …
I also like artists like Aaron Taylor, he blows my mind, or Erika de Casier.
I have a very varied music taste, I need diversity, not just emotionally but also in what stimulates me. \
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Your U.S. tour starts on March 3rd. How does it feel to tour the U.S. for the very first time?
It's an honor to share my songs so far across the pond! It’s a country I want to know more in-depth and connect with. It feels like a gift, and I'm nervous and impatient because I can't wait. I already have everything ready and prepared.
Do you feel nervous to be taking flamenco to a place that’s so culturally different to where you’re from?
Sure, but I also trust a lot in the power of music. It’s a bridge between people and we’re not all that different when we have music between us.
Music is like a smile, if you see someone smiling, you smile back.
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