Diandra Interviews Enrique Campos: A Song Is Like A Care Package

For Enrique Campos, you may not be able to save the world, but you can save a song to your playlist. He’s a social justice advocate that is over society’s approval, especially of his sexuality and his art. Thus, in our interview, we discuss the balance of an artist to create music about his world while realizing it is not for the entire world. In some ways, to send a song is to send a care package to the people that feel as crazy as you do, and Enrique makes sure that package is filled with love. 

Diandra: As an artist and writer, do you believe EVERYONE can come together in peace? 

Enrique: Let’s start out the interview really deep. (he laughs) I love it. In my sort of way, I was such a traditionalist in my style, although now I experiment more. As a gay man, in a very macho society, I have had to defend people from a prejudice scene and really have felt like I am imposing on society with just my existence. There is not much peace to living like that, but we do it because we can’t stay bullied. 
Enrique Campos – Perdí

Diandra: Well, it is just not possible to bring EVERYBODY together, and it has always been portrayed that the artist can. 

Enrique: I think that is accurate that everybody can’t get along. There are so many people and differences and the uniqueness of everybody is what good people welcome, and that is where I feel comfort. Good people welcome different people. 

It is quite liberating, as an artist, to recognize that you can’t unite the world. In history, there has always been this responsibility of the artist to check society, but I feel people are responsible for themselves and their reactions. Our job, as an artist,, is to express and have people connect with what you reveal about yourself; creating a space where people can see their love and pain in you, but understanding that a whole society is not going to share its experience with you. 

Diandra: So do you see music like a care package? 

Enrique: I think so. I see music like a care package for some. When you take the seriousness of something, a heartbreak or a trauma, and make a song, it is like you are sending someone the love they need or are missing. I am a loving, passionate person, and I put that in my music for people who are like me and want to have fun. It is like putting you heart in a package, and giving it to someone so that both you don’t drown in your mutual sorrows. 

Diandra: So do you think that is why you embrace genres like Tango and Punk?  

Enrique: I think that I am those genres and Cumbia, which has a lot in common with tango. I think those genres are very much about the love and pain you feel in the present. I think other genres can be very nostalgic and about the past; singing to love and pain from a distance. Yet, I like to sing about what I feel now. I like the live in the present.  

Diandra: Known for being visual, do you see sound as an image? 

Enrique: For me, music is very visual. When I make a song, I always think of the staging and what would I wear. It all comes to life to me, and I love performing. I think the whole process of making a song, from recording to performing, is like connecting with an emotion in its absolute energy. I love putting an image to a feeling, and I see the image an audience imagines as the completion of a song. What they see in what you sing carries the song to its end; so I try to leave spaces for them to makes their own discoveries and visions.
Enrique Campos – Indiferente

Diandra: So, ultimately, do you feel you lose or gain yourself on the stage? 

Enrique: When I am on stage I am very self-assured and aware: no nerves. I feel so comfortable and connected; just letting things fo with the flow. In real life, I am the opposite. I like to control and know how thing will happen and have a say. The stage brings out in me things I wish to carry into my life. 

I don’t know why, but when I start my songs, I let myself go, and live their emotions completely. So I never sing or perform the same way, but, in-between songs, you do get this mixture of energy that is part adrenaline and awareness. You can just feel where everyone is in terms of energy, and you get a feeling on how to guide them through the night. It is a 50-50 experience, and you are like a surfer. You meet the people’s waves of energy, and you gently steer them.  

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