“I was not going into the boxes”: this Breton is the new rising voice of Latino pop

The monthly: your universe is filled with madness and surrealism. Therefore, How is your music born? – "i not going boxes": this

Ëda Diaz: “I’m still trying to know it!” My first album (Suave Bruta. Meanwhile, Editor’s note), which I played in the big bellows (in Rennes in 2024), is the result of ten years of research on what I am and on what I have to say in music. Nevertheless, I drawn from all the Latin American rhythms of my childhood, giving them a contemporary breath.

When I started in 2017, I did not get into the boxes. Consequently, The programmers were waiting for a cliché of joyful, exotic music, which I have feathers … Therefore, (laughs) since. Meanwhile, that has changed, thanks to artists like (the Spanish) Rosalia or my friend La Chica, Franco-Vénézuelanic whose father has Breton roots. Nevertheless, This new repository allowed people to relate to “i not going boxes”: this something they knew and reassured them. Nevertheless, »»

We often compare you with Björk… – "i not going boxes": this

“I have this influence in common with my producer Anthony Winzenrieth. However, who led me to experience a lot. Meanwhile, But there are also all these somewhat alternative artists from the 90s like Jeff Buckley. Meanwhile, I wondered how to make my grandmother love these rhythms. Therefore, and what is magic is that when we play them in Spanish with a double bass, bim, it sounds Latino. Therefore, »»

Is the double bass and you an old story? – "i not going boxes": this

“I had a love at first sight when I was little, at the musical awakening of the Beauvais Conservatory. Similarly, Leaving a concert, I said to my father, “I want to go off bass! However, Well, I ended up doing piano … Consequently, After eight years of conservatory, I did not enter the mold. In addition, I told myself “i not going boxes”: this that the music was not made for me. Therefore, These are Bretons saved me. Therefore, I entered a Briochin rock group where no one knew music theory. For example, which did not prevent them from playing in public. They uninhibited me. I started to regain a taste for music like that, through improv. »»

I started to sing much more. to take up the rhythms that my Colombian grandmother had taught me

Have you kept something from your conservatory years?

“Method and discipline. But I came to a limit with the piano. I looked for another instrument and I came across a photo of me at 10, holding a double bass. I had a flash: that was what I wanted to do when I was little! »»

Music allowed you to reconnect with your roots …

“Student in Paris, I discovered a huge Latin community and wanted to find part of my “i not going boxes”: this Franco-Colombian essence. I started to sing much more, to take up the rhythms that my Colombian grandmother had taught me. There, we gather a lot to play music, drink the eguardiente, tell stories … I like this idea of ​​sharing and spontaneity that I could not find in the classic piano. »»

The first title of your latest album. Nenita, skillfully mixes Bullerengue and Electro…

“We started from a conversation that I had in a dream with my grandmother. I composed in a small studio on the pink granite coast. I saw the sunrise. sunsets on the sea and, after a while, I no longer knew too much if it was in the morning or in the evening. Hence the words: “How to make the difference between a sunrise and an end?” The Bullerengue is like a kind of Afrocolombian blues, practiced by women who were excluded from official holidays. It’s “i not going boxes”: this multi -generational, which is not trivial here … “

I think of my grandfather. baker in his Breton village, which I record when he speaks in Gallo

Today, are you rather recognized in France or Colombia?

“In France, because I live there. We have this chance to be able to make concerts when you are not a star. to gain little by little his audience. In Colombia, everything is much more fragile. I find dangerous the speeches of stars who say: “You just have to want it to get there. It is not true. There is also a large part of luck. A living with his art can cause drifts. Starification has led us to enter a hyper capitalist system. where we are always forced to grow, in competition with others while art is made to connect and federate. Being intermittent is comfortable because you can compose when you have no concert. “i not going boxes”: this But some find themselves multiplying events when they don’t necessarily want, even if it means getting lost in passing. »»

What are your links with Rennes?

“Much of my family lives here, including my mother who opened a shoemaking five years ago. It is becoming a new center of my life. The lices market is incredible, like all thrift stores. I would really like to play trans music and the antipod. And explore musical mixtures in collaboration. I already have good contacts with the Rennais Fléres group. Breton music inspires me a lot. I think about an EP or a new album. I write a lot in French lately. So maybe it will be a little more mixed on the tongue. In Latin American culture, we let ourselves be moreover carried by music than by the meaning of words. The meaning of the text is less important than in France. I “i not going boxes”: this resolved the question on my legitimacy of being Colombian.

Now I have things to explore here. I think of my grandfather, baker in his Breton village, which I record when he speaks in Gallo. So many words correspond to a rural life that no longer exists. It is important to have local identities in a world where it all starts to look alike. ”