Diandra Interviews Cami: Observing Your Monsters Through Music
We all have our monsters. Personally, I think what tips the scale between a good and bad person is the one that decides to fight their monsters and encourage their angels. The problem is that, sometimes, it is not easy to tell the difference. In Cami’s new album, Monstruo,she observes how some of the things she swore were dark about herself were vital to her finding her light; a truth she talks about in our interview below.
Diandra: How are you during these crazy times?
Cami: This time and space that we are, currently, in has allowed me observe different aspects of myself. I don’t know if I would have another time to be so reflective of my career, my life, and and who I am had it not been from the very tension of this pandemic.
Cami – Funeral ft. WOS
Diandra: Your album is about reflecting and embracing one’s monster. You think such a notion is even more relevant to now?
Cami: It is a very profound album that is about getting in touch with your repression. I don’t know if I was meant to write this album “for now” like, destiny, but I know that I wrote it for me and what I was going through in terms of embracing aspects of myself that I had locked away.
Diandra: I did this interview with Francisca Valenzuela about how, in some ways, being an artist can be like being a psychic for what a world will go through, and Monstruo, as a record, really does feel like it came at the right time because it is all about freeing what you feel is confined within you.
Cami: Yeah! When I wrote these songs, I started with a story, but I didn’t know where it was going to go. It has happened before where I wrote a song and then it related to what was going on with the world. Monstro is about anxiety, and feeling the stress from your reality, especially if you don’t know how to or don’t want to process it. We really repress our spirits and don’t let ourselves be free to do what we want.
Cami – La Entrevista
Diandra: So do you see that embracing of your “monster” like a way of warding off negativity?
Cami: I think that negativity is apart of life, at all times. In Spanish Romanticism, negativity is seen as apart of balance. Positivity and negativity are forces that are necessary for the spirit to develop. It is not like this thing that burdens or attacks you, although it is bad, but, instead, it a vital energy; it is something that is apart of the growing process. It is how we build our creativity, learn, and create concepts.
Diandra: That is super interesting to me because the whole idea of Heaven is that there is no darkness, but you are saying darkness is embedded in us and how it interacts with the light, that is also embedded in us, is necessary. It is natural.
Cami: TOTALLY! Totally! It is how we grow. Human beings are dual beings. On earth, we are both Heaven and Hell. We are constantly living in both and observing and embodying both energies, which is why I use those ideas in my music. In my songs, I try to see negativity not simply as evil or trying to cause harm, but also weakness, anxiety, depression, and fear. Negativity is not only about causing hurt but also feeling it.
Diandra: DAMN! THAT IS WISDOM!
Cami laughs
Diandra: So, with that concept, what are your two sides?
Cami: I feel like there isn’t one specific concept of duality. When things happens to me, from situations and inner conflicts, I try to go beyond negativity or positivity. I try to see it like a state of being; one that can offer me everything that is both good and bad. I am a Scorpio; so we are known for being intense, and if I took everything like, “This is negativity!” and “This is positivity!” I would go insane. Instead, I try see things as if they are “all.” I see duality as apart of my daily; in that day, there are various things I can rescue or take in from the day.
Cami – La Entrevista
Diandra: So do you see music as your way of reconciling with everything in your life?
Cami: EXACTLY! What a beautiful word to use:“ reconcile.” I love that word: “reconciliation.” I think we are all trying to reconcile with ourselves, and music allows us to put together all that is apart of us, especially in our daily lives. Music opens us up to reconciling with ourselves. Songs allows to collect and reflect upon feeling we didn’t know we had or, at least, didn’t know how to process it. I find it incredible when you hear a song and your hairs shoot up because you remember a childhood memory and you swear you can smell your home and see your mother’s face or it can summon within you feelings of pure joy and sadness.
Diandra: Is there a particular memory that Monstro summons?
Cami: Every song summons memories for me because they are all based on my experiences, but “La Despedida” is one because it is about me reconciling with my childhood: a young Cami. It is me trying to reconcile with my traumas and repressed feelings and who I was or thought I would be. I’ll always find inspiration from Life and my own experiences; it is like an endless offering of material.
Cami – Vuelvo
Cami: What would be your advice to your childhood self then?
Diandra: I would tell her not to lose her strength, especially in how she invests it in others or even takes if in from others. In the end, the strongest strength you will find for yourself is within yourself.
Diandra: So what is your strength as person and artist?
Cami: I would say I am focused. No matter what, especially in terms of my music, I always have focus.
Cami – Aquí Estoy
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