Paulina Sotomayor is the Mexican DJ and producer behind “Pahua”, which in Nahuatl means sweet fruit or avocado. The artist who has just been named Spotify Mexico’s EQUAL artist of the month tells us about her story, the influence of native peoples in her music, the importance of rhythm and percussion for her creative process, and the connection with the feminine and nature. We also talk about her latest release: Caña Brava.
Tell us about how you got into making and playing music.
I started in music at a very young age. At the age of six I started singing in a Mariachi, which opened a very different panorama for me. I never imagined I would dedicate myself to regional music, but for some reason I loved it, and that made me find a very boleristic essence.It also lead me to understand that there is a whole universe of music that is not necessarily in Spanish, but in the languages of the native peoples of Mexico. I sang in those languages and it was strange, because I did not understand what I was singing, but I translated it and it was very beautiful. There are poems that speak of nature, of the relationship that exists between humans, rivers and animals.
I sang in churches, at weddings, in parks. The goal was to promote culture, and for people to have access to these languages, since they were difficult to preserve. Now, there is a boom that promotes their conservation. I think there are about 70 languages that exist in Mexico, there are a lot of them.
How did you go from singing in those choirs to experimenting with instruments and later with electronics?
When I was 15 years old, I started to get a little more familiar with instruments. I started playing percussion and that’s when I got into rhythm, which helps to understand body expression and this whole world of cadences. I loved it. First I played the Yembé, then some congas, then drums from different regions, for example: from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela. I became fascinated by percussion… What I did was to adapt that to music, at one point I made banks of percussions that I liked, sounds more related to healers and santeros.
How was it to mix electronic music and folklore?
What I did was, for example, record a cajón and then adapt it to something related to folklore, also adapting it to pop. I’ve always had that essence. It is thanks to all this that I have managed to create Pahua now, which is a project that was born in the pandemic. Before this, I had another musical project, with my brother, called Sotomayor. It was more neocumbia with a little bit of afro and folklore, but the electronic sound was always there.
Recently, I was in a very cool project from Apple, called Arrullos Mexicanos Vol. 1, which was about finding instrumentations that defined your country and with that to make music like “lullabies” for babies, so I made songs that had, for example, jarana, which is the sound of the son jarocho, many sounds that come from the pre-Hispanic period, from the Maya culture, and adapted to sing it all in Nahuatl. From this, I made a lullaby, and listening to it after it was done, I thought it was quite cool, the fact that it was music for babies, because it was very folkloric music and not necessarily for sleeping.
Could you tell us more about Sotomayor and how was the path to become a professional musician?
I was studying digital animation. I wanted to dedicate myself to illustration, because my mom is a super good painter and I had that in my DNA, but at some point in my career I felt the call (of music). One day I met a teacher who gave me music lessons and asked me why I wasn’t studying music if I was very good at it… that gave me a new perspective, and I rushed to tell my mom. I only had one year left to finish studying, but it was the best decision. I feel that right now I don’t know how to do anything better than music, I can’t see myself doing anything else. At the moment you can’t see it so much, it’s a bit like starting all over again, but it was good, I see my parents who are suddenly going to see me play and I see them very happy, they, too, know that I made a good decision… and what’s better than following your instinct?
I was with Sotomayor for about eight years. I realized that the project was serious because of the people: they started recognizing me, and I talked to people and they liked it. It was something a little more underground, there were not so many projects dedicated to cumbia, it was a good time to go out with tropical Caribbean music and electronic music. It was a few years after the boom of Bomba Estéreo, which has that same root, that inspiration and it helped a lot that in Mexico that music was being listened to, it changed the category. Here (Mexico) everything is very pop and rock and this was super cool, fresh and for dancing. The first time I went to Spain I felt that people loved the project and the same thing happened in France, in Germany and there I understood that Sotomayor’s music was very international.
You were saying that Pahua started during the pandemic. Tell us more about that.
Yes, I started this project to continue making music, during the pandemic I was hardly seeing my brother and that gets to you, because you don’t know what is going to happen with the project. We had a new album and the wind took it away… we had made an album with Eduardo Cabra, from Calle 13, at the end of 2019 and just when we were going to have the presentation, March came and the pandemic took everythng away. People didn’t really notice that the album came out. I comment on it from a personal point of view, but I imagine that we both felt a super downturn and that’s when I started making music and that catapulted me to do something alone. The same thing happened with him, which teaches you to know that you can have control of a new system.
After two years from that moment, it’s going super fast. Even though it came out during the pandemic, I think that helped me really meditate about what I wanted to put out. Last year I released an album called Amuleto and it has 11 collaborators from Latin America. It was a great experience, because trying to plan an album with 11 people from different countries and coordinating it is a challenge. I’m super happy with the result, it’s a great album and I’m doing it on Vinyl. It’s like my baby, I’m super happy.
What was it like to make a record with so many people at a distance?
Just before starting that album I did an EP called La Cura. I loved the process because with the pandemic you had to figure out how to record and produce. I made some songs and shared them with different artists, one of them was Gizmo Varillas, and with him I did everything via Zoom. We could do it in real time and there were even plugins to make the latency minimal, so it was perfect to do it that way. I also worked with another artist called La Dame Blanche, she is from Cuba, and her project is incredible. Then I said to myself: of course I can make a complete album this way, with collaborators from different parts of the world. If it doesn’t work, I can travel and record it, or have them come to Mexico.
That’s how the process went, we started by emailing, and then we saw how to get together. A lot of artists come to Mexico for work, so I took that as an opportunity. Some of them came here to record, for example, El Individuo, who is Cuban, the girls from La Perla who are from Colombia, Paz Court, who is from Chile, I also recorded Fernando Milagros here… and that helped me a lot, now I feel they are my friends. Finding that match on an artistic level and on a friendship level, knowing that you can count on them for anything and that when you go to their countries you can do shows together or whatever, it’s great. I feel that the connection that music generates is very deep.
I produced the album with a good friend called Barzo from Costa Rica and we didn’t know each other in person at all. The first time we talked was through Instagram, we made a song together and I loved it, then I told him let’s make an album together and, while we were making the album, I went to play in London. I met him at that show, then I went to Colombia and I saw him again. I feel that this is the real experience that music has given me, it’s a little bit the pretext of let’s create, but in reality I’m making friends.
Has the experience of developing a project alone been different?
Sure, having a musical project is super complex, you have to invest a lot of energy and money and you have to work all the time, you need to over stimulate a lot of things. Pahua has been a challenge and is teaching me a lot. I also felt that I was not making the most out of my feminine dimension with Sotomayor, although I love that project and it is what has led me to be in the music industry. I feel like now this feminine dimension is really present for me, and it’s helped me connect with myself and my intimacy, and things that I wasn’t really understanding. The pandemic taught us all about the use of time, about being in touch with yourself, talking more about self-love and understanding what it is to love yourself. It also taught us about where art is going, which is a good thing to identify.
In what way have you been able to connect with the feminine?
With Sotomayor I was more focused on making lyrics that connected in a very general way with people, I talked a lot about nature, mainly about things that were easily digestible. Now I am speaking from a much more poetic level, which is the same thing that happened to me when I was a kid. I find the nostalgia of things, how I want to describe certain sensations of love through analogies with nature. That has been the best exercise, you find a very different way of transmitting the message. Earlier in my career, I didn’t want to relate to love songs, because everybody does it, but suddenly I realized that I did want to do it, but in a different way. That’s what I try to do in Pahua and I have found it feels good. I read the lyrics and I like the way they sound and the way they are structured, the way people can relate and identify with those analogies. I have realized that people do look at the lyrics, not just the rhythm.
This can perhaps be reflected in your latest release Caña Brava, which also came out on the day of 8M…
We made this song thinking about the powerful woman, the one who knows how to take the reins of things, and who also knows how to have fun and enjoy the process. The name Caña Brava comes from being a badass woman, the last phrase of the album talks about that, about women’s liberation; if I want to dress a certain way or take a nude picture, what do you care? It’s my liberation and I want to do things that way, even if society tells me it’s wrong. I feel that this is what is happening with the 8M movement, that we are opening the field in careers that were not necessarily so feminine, I think it is our new revolution.
What would you say to female artists who are just starting their careers?
That there is a lot of information out there right now that they can find, in terms of tools, which is fabulous. When I started, we didn’t have that, you had to go to a school or buy a course from a friend and know how the industry worked. It took you a long time to know how to get to the royalties, now you are just a click away from everything, so they have everything at their disposal to learn how to do things right from the beginning. They can learn how the industry works, at the level of collaborators, and where to place their music. It’s great, I feel it’s very interesting how everything has been adapted so that we can be more and more sustainable in that sense.
How do you think Pahua has been received by the public?
In Mexico there is an audience for everything and Pahua has many sounds; cumbia, folklore, and others. That helps it to diversify and not fall into one category or another. It can fit into the tropical Caribbean electronic world, which has helped me to make it feel genuine. That’s what is impactful, and what has helped me to develop it here and in other countries. It’s a little bit different from what we already know.
Other people I’ve met who are making this kind of music are not Mexican, but they are here, so I’ve been able to collaborate and see what we can find in common. I love the process of working with other artists.
How would you describe your sound or how do you think people recognize it?
It’s super hard to put it in one word, but one concept I like is tropidelia, because you’re using a lot of things, it can also be folk fusion, which is something I don’t want to leave out, I think it’s the backbone of everything. I try to move with it, whether it has cumbia rhythms or super electronic ones. I also like to get to know different regions and countries; right now I did a song with some girls from Colombia and I tried to find the roots of the Pacific folklore, they play some beautiful sounding gaitas, so that is the folklore component of the song, but in reality it is a bullerengue house.
Do you think that through folklore you connect with the public? How do you do it to get into the same frequency?
I have realized that through trance, music and percussion people manage to expand a lot on a corporal level. Now I was in Costa Rica, in a festival that is very big, like Burning Man, but much more spiritual, and I realized that the backbone of everything was the rhythm, the drums, the leather, the wood.
I took body expression classes because it was something that I had a little separated from the artistic area. When I started singing with my project it was hard for me to perform, the stage is very big and it eats you up a little, but I feel that it is good to take a risk and find yourself at that point of getting close to people and feeling free. It is difficult though, so I took classes to find the energy that I wanted to express on stage and embody it. I did not know why I was so detached from it, I think it is because I am an introvert. Now it is not so hard, I enjoy it very much.
Do you think that in other parts of the world people also connect with your proposal?
Music is what has taken me to know the world, it is great that it is through art, because it is a way of communicating that does not require having the same language. That is divine, to be singing in Spanish and that there are people who don’t understand you, but they enjoy it and connect with the essence of the music, that is what is beautiful.
Tell us about your latest mixtape, ‘Afro Love’
This mixtape is inspired by Afro beats that merge between Techno and Afro house. I have the sound of African music in my blood. I have grown up listening to artists like Louie Vega and Gregor Salto to more current music like Daniel Haaksman and Jose Marquéz and it is the music that flows in me to connect with the body and spirit.
What is Pahua listening to and what are you currently working on?
I’m listening to a lot of different music, but a little while ago I found a girl, I think she’s from Galicia, her name is Queralt Lahoz and she’s amazing, the new album by Mitu, who are Colombian, is incredible, they have super pacific sounds, I’m also listening to La Rosa which is a project from Peru that plays a very psychedelic cumbia.
A few years ago I had the routine of making music every day, which helps you a lot to connect with what you want, but it is impossible to maintain it now. I have so many shows that it is very difficult, so if I manage to do it, great, but if not, I don’t get frustrated.
The system right now, the way everything is being handled digitally, you either take it by the hand or the wind blows you away. I’m trying to flow with everything. I recently started a project called Musas Latinas, which I have on TikTok, to talk about Latin American women who are the inspiration for current projects, such as Celia Cruz or Totó La Momposina. I try to talk first about a root project and then talk about a project that is a little more current, but that has different tones and colors of those projects. It’s cool, but it’s a lot of research and looking for artists who are in the same process. When I have time, and I’m on a plane or something like that, I do Lo-fi. I have a project now called Río Nilo and it’s really cool because it manages itself and I love that all of a sudden it shows up in playlists.
I want to invite you to listen to an album that I named thinking about how we inhabit ourselves, how we make our universe in a better way and how we feed it little by little. That’s why I talk about the habit, I feel that helps us to understand much more of our personal processes.
