Isabel Casanova (Madrid, 1992), better known as La Otra, came to music through politics at a time when “really thinking that things were going to change through activism was something that didn’t seem as distant as it does today.” It was the time of 15 million and, later, 8 million. She, along with many other emerging voices, began to tell a story that helped thousands of women enter or stay in the movement.
His style of storytelling has changed along with feminism. Now, he says, society demands a different kind of storytelling, much deeper, much less “pamphleteering.” This progression has been reflected in the range of albums that span his career. Last, Come backreleased this year.
What awakened your feminist consciousness?
I guess I’ve always been sensitive, although I think my way of seeing the world doesn’t come from my early childhood, it’s not something that comes from education, because I come from a rather conservative and traditional background.
One of the things that struck me the most in this sense is that when I was 15, a guy grabbed one of my friends in the street, hit her and raped her in an open field, and it was terrible. From that moment on, she changed. On the other hand, when I was a teenager, without knowing the term “feminist”, I already knew that you had to do things like sneak around to do what you wanted, or I saw how the issue of care was distributed at home. I saw the burden of female figures and the lack of care among men.
We talk a lot about the importance of female role models for society and for new generations. In your case, were there any?
Well yes and no. My story is a bit unusual, because I didn’t start devoting myself to art because I had a specific goal. I came to music through politics. Then I found myself more and more comfortable and more and more in need of art to the point of making it my job, but when I started I had no reference in general. I started making songs because I needed them and I somehow found a space thanks to activism. So I would say that at that time I had more of my colleagues as references, women and men. And also people who made activist music, like Turning your back on patriarchy, Step by stepKeny Arkana… Or people like Itziar Ziga, Virginie Despentes, Diana Pornoterrorista. Later, Natalia Lafourcade, Silvia Pérez Cruz, Buika, Lila Downs, Ana Tijoux or Lauryn Hill, and of course Mercedes Sosa, Violeta Parra… But I looked for the references later, when I was already training as an artist, and they seem very important, especially the voices of Latin American women.
Do you think that in the music world there are more female role models than in other fields?
I think a lot of things are changing, and whatever the references, what is happening is that it continues to be more difficult to reach places where you can practice your profession with dignity and access spaces of recognition. In other words, it remains difficult because art is not a place apart from the rest of the world. I think that the music industry is not one of the most masculinized today, but it has been the case for a year or two. And it is still a place where there are many more men than women in places of recognition.
When you’re a woman trying to make your way in the music industry, what happens? What was your experience? What challenges did you encounter?
It’s a difficult question because so many things are mixed together… In my case, since my beginnings, being a woman who expressed herself explicitly from feminist discourses was already a fairly exclusive introduction letter. So I have a mixture of having made militant music, of having also started without very solid musical training, of being young and of not coming from any musical background… I would say that I have seen problems more as a feminist than as a woman, in the sense that men who dedicate themselves to music have always been very used to working in a non-mixed way and I did not want to work with a group composed only of men.
I also didn’t want to work in a hyper-masculinized way. Now it’s starting to get a little easier, but still, as an emerging artist, looking for women who were a little like me was difficult. It was also difficult when feminism wasn’t “in fashion.” Even though I later had a less militant discourse, I have a deep way of speaking that is not the most marketable within the framework of marketable feminism.
Have you received any hostility for writing such explicitly feminist lyrics?
Not so much hate, because there was never a single man at my concerts, except for a cheated boyfriend. But that has changed. The difference between ten years ago and today is very visible.
Is there a little more parity in your audience now?
No parity, but if before at my concerts there were three boys out of 300 people and they went with their girlfriend, who had clearly forced them to go, now there are still 30% boys.
The tone of the lyrics of your songs has changed, why?
For me, it’s a strategic question. What was effective before is no longer effective today. It doesn’t please those who don’t want to know anything about feminism, but I think that activist speeches worked, that they made a lot of sense, because they provoked reflection. But I think that now we are very saturated with speeches because the media have become much more present in the last five or ten years. We are tired, I perceive it in my environment and in myself, that people who are already politicized do not really want to listen to activist music.
From an artistic point of view, making a two-minute pamphlet in which we ignore all the nuances and in which we say the four clichés that we have already heard 80 times everywhere, is not interesting. For those of us who are already politicized, it tires us and scares those who are not. I feel called to participate in the cultural battle as an artist, but I think we must also see how the context changes. Now, the framework is already defined and what is interesting is to generate collective debates, long and relaxed, where the complexity of everything and the internal dissensions that exist in feminisms can be addressed.
Do you think men still feel distant from feminist lyrics or that they generally have trouble admiring female artists?
There are women who put artistic work at the center of our lives, but there are so many different artists. I think a lot of people have no problem connecting with Karol G., for example, as an artist, and then there are people who are less successful. As for the numbers, beyond my personal interpretation, yes that’s how it is. I mean, when I go to concerts with male colleagues, I notice that there are many more men at their concerts than at mine or at those of my female colleagues. So I think you can’t generalize and say that men have a hard time connecting with female artists, but I think that in general – this is how this world works – it’s harder for men to recognize women.
There is a lot of talk about how most so-called allies in the music world are “cardboard.” Have you observed this phenomenon much?
I am particularly annoyed by men who show sensitivity as long as showing it has a social benefit. So what happens? Since it has become something that, in some cases, is done in a utilitarian way and not out of sincere commitment, but rather to maintain or obtain privileges, to obtain applause, or to not inhabit a place of social disapproval, there are many men who are simply doing this act of purple wash of their projects by inertia, but they are not interested. It is the same thing that happens to us in our private lives, but we are more angry with public figures because they obtain professional advantages for having displayed these positions. The problem with masculinity is that there is a great difficulty in looking at oneself and, if one does not look at oneself, if there is not a kind of emotional work, of self-criticism, one will not realize the unconscious ideas that one has.
