Diandra Interviews Sol Escobar: The Dark Energy of Music

Whether you are an artist or a lover of music, we all are connected to a song because, for three minutes, it makes us either feel like someone else or like our actual self. A good song can reveal to you a dream that felt unclear in verse but strong in virtue. For Sol Escobar, or La Dama Oscura, music has brought to life her lightness and darkness, of which songs are her soul’s interpretive dance. In our interview, we discuss the fantasy of her sound and how self-love helped her fearlessly embrace it. 

Diandra: La Dama Oscura approaches love like a fantasy. What is your favorite fantasy or mythical love story and why?

Sol Escobar: Francis Coppola’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula; that is a myth I really love. There is a scene where Dracula is advancing oceans of time just to see Mina, the love of his life, and I thought, as opposed to the book, it was more romantic and driven towards the eternity of love. It also touches the drive of desire; to make something you don’t have your own. So La Dama Oscura is nurtured by the stories of a vampire. 

Diandra: : You love the idea or vampires. What about them do you find romantic and seducing? 

Sol: I think because vampires have a darkness to their stories. I am also a music teacher, as well. There is a part of rhythm that is called dark energy. This dark energy is not something you can measure but it is related to gravity. In Latin American and African countries, you learn of rhythm through the body as opposed to learning it mathematically and intellectually. This dark energy is not something you can “understand” but it is very close to the truth like, What is God? It is the universe in movement and transformations. In this dark energy, the sub-conscious approaches things that are difficult to understand. La Dama Oscura, intuitively, touches upon all the things we are collecting from the world.

Diandra: With that in mind, what has then this “dark energy” helped you let go? 

Sol: All the time!  Letting go, collecting, letting go, collecting: it is like a circle of evolving for me. Letting go is also about listening to your heart, not rationally, bust according to your desire. It’s funny. I was never into ranchera music. I was in Pantaleon Y Las Visitadoras, I played Ponchita. It was a musical, but I was not a character who sings but I felt she needed a song. When I wrote it, I was surprised because it was a ranchera. 

Sol Escobar – Disparo

Diandra: How have your parents influenced you as an artist?

Sol Escobar: They taught to be fearless. My father is 87 years old, he has dementia, and he is like a little kid. He was fearless. He goes into an experience without judging himself. There is a part of the intellectual mind, beyond the linguistic brain, that I enjoy, which is freedom. My parents are very cultured and educated, but they are free. My father came to the US when he was 17, and traveled the world like an explorer. My mother is more language oriented. She talks like Don Quijote. (she laughs).From her, I learned to be very expressive and creative. Being talkative comes from her (she laughs). They are both so self-driven. They are narcissists. (she dies laughing) They can’t stop talking about themselves, but they are not aware that they are apart of my vampire world. 

Diandra: Thirteen years passed before this album. How do you feel you grew as a person, in those years, and how did that effect the process of this record?

Sol Escobar: Destroying the past is a way of creating like, I take a picture of who I was, I cut it up, and I make a PIcasso. (she laughs) I do those things in a way that I am not aware. In this album, I saw that. Before I did pop music and was very polite. Now, I am bold and strong and someone that says everything to someone’s face. Now, I say, “I am here. I am staying. If you don’t like it….so what!” It is a very “Latin American Woman.” This album talks a lot about rebirth. The song, “La Dama Oscura,” is about a woman that has done everything and, now, feels free. She loves herself enough to make mistakes and say, “F**k it!” 

Disparo

Diandra: So has this album helped you embrace death, as well?

Sol: Yes, I think death is like a rebirth. You go through many deaths, and that has taught me to be humble. 

Diandra: You have said,“Es que me gusta estar siempre al borde de la noche.” What does “night” mean to you symbolically and what apart of your personality does it appeal to? 

Sol: Night is the darkness, but it also has romance. It is something that shines far away. It is dreams and fantasy like, letting go. It is when you “dress up” and transform to laugh with friends and be their “psychologist.” The night is a melting pot of all these things. 

For More Information On Sol Escobar And To Buy La Dama Oscura Click Here.