Ángela Aguilar affirms that she has Argentine blood and is proud of her roots. (Photo by Jaime Nogales/Medios y Media/Getty Images) (Medios y Media via Getty Images)
He has talent, he has proven it abundantly. This shouldn’t be up for discussion. Or it shouldn’t be, and yet it is. During the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, some fans turned away from him for expressing his football feelings towards the Argentina national team, stating that he was Argentine. The supporters who left the boat were joined by haters who condemned them for it. Since then, Ángela Aguilar has been a victim of cancel culture.
But that is not all. In June 2023, he was again criticized and scorned for releasing a cover of The cat under the rain entitled “Invítame a un café”, a version he created in collaboration with DJ Steve Aoki. The song offended three groups: fans of Rocío Dúrcal, Rocío Dúrcal’s family and critics of Ángela. They agreed to point out that the singer had destroyed the classic that “the diva of divas” made immortal.
“It’s the music I love. My taste isn’t what it is right now, I don’t listen to many new artists. I listen to Rocío Dúrcal, Juan Gabriel, Flor Silvestre, Jorge Negrete. I listen to different people. So when I walk into the studio with this DJ, who is the most modern and youngest, he starts playing music for me and I said, “I just don’t like this.” He said, “Let’s start from the beginning , what do you like? Which song do you like? Which artist do you like?”, and the first thing that came to mind was Rocío Durcal and La gata in the rain,” says Ángela Aguilar. Mara Patricia Castañeda in an interview.
The choice of song, according to Ángela, It was also because he thought it would be positive to bring an anthem from the past to the present that current generations do not know. He believed it was a good opportunity to bring together today’s youth with yesterday’s romantic lyrics. However, this earned him rejection. He is also asked whether he will change his gender after this attack on Aoki.
“It seems to me that mariachi is one of the most difficult things to sing. What I like most about singing is that it’s difficult. So because of the history and my taste, I will never stop singing mariachi,” says Patricia Castañeda Mara about this situation.
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After this answer, Ángela revealed her maternal grandmother’s Argentine influences when she said she enjoyed collaborating with Argentine musician Fito Páez. which positioned itself again on the international image and sound map in 2023 after the start of the Netflix series “Love After Love”. The singer also made it clear that rap was not part of her plans.
“It may be that sometimes I do a duet with Fito Páez, who is more rock, or I do a duet with Becky G, who is weird reggaeton mariachi, or suddenly I do a duet with who knows who and I do different types .” of the things. I think she would be a very bad rapper. “I couldn’t be a rapper.”
She appreciates herself for the efforts she has made and is making to make the reputation of Mexican music better known, Ángela preserves in her memories a crucial moment for her as a performer. and as a precursor to the Mexican region’s resurgence in this century.
“The moment that shaped my story – and it’s one of those moments where I feel like if we were in the movie Back to the Future everything would collapse and everything would be terrible – The moment that changed my life was when I sang the song at the Latin Grammys at the age of 15 The Llorona. In that moment I realized how much I loved what I love doing. It wasn’t yet the fashion for Mexican music. Between reggaeton, pop-rock and different types of cumbia, I released two guitars.”
In order for this to be possible, She attaches importance to the father figure, the performer and composer Pepe Aguilar. The youngest Aguilar is fully aware that he is a strict, rigorous man who loves discipline and is unyielding at a professional level, and appreciates her father’s intransigence with which he guides her:
“My father is brutally honest. (…) He’ll never say anything to you that makes you feel good… For me, having a critic or a person who is so critical of me has helped me a lot.”
“(I wrote down) what I did wrong, where I was out of tune, where I stumbled. At first you get angry. But then I started thinking, I read all his notes, we started talking about it. And these notes come from a man with 28 albums, 30 years of career, arena tours, theater tours on horseback, on foot and all sorts of ways. The fact that he told me helped me a lot. “I would a thousand times rather my father tell me the truth than a thousand people telling me what I want to hear.”
Among the truths you must accept is pride in your roots. After the episode of hostility towards his character for encouraging the Albiceleste at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, especially in the final against France, he continues to wonder why his critics found something offensive that is not offensive and decided not to to listen more to their songs.
“Yes, I have Argentine blood. It is a topic that was difficult for me because I did not understand it and still do not understand it. We live in a generation where cancel culture is a very different culture than the one you or my mother lived. They cancel you.”
In fact, the singer has Argentine ancestry his grandmother Eva Mendoza, mother of Aneliz Álvarez, mother of Ángela. In fact, both of them shared it in capsules and episodes which they uploaded on social media.
“In my case, I have never hidden anything about where I come from, where I come from. My grandmother and I have a vlog on YouTube that already has more than 350 episodes Pepe Aguilar and family vlog. It’s not something we’ve hidden, it’s not an issue that makes me feel different, superior or lesser because of where I come from. At the end of the day, I am who I am and I have nothing to do with the fact that my grandmother was born somewhere else.”
Ángela holds nothing back when she says this She was unjustly abused because, for example, she accepted that she had Argentine blood. flowing in the veins and cheering on Argentina at the World Cup, which happened as part of a football phenomenon that is already over and does not go beyond a sporting event.
“The unfair thing is not that people know where I come from, but that they can Google it. The unfair thing is that they take away my recognition for all the work I’ve done and the person I am just because I made a comment about the national team. It’s football, people. And nothing more.”
“Everything speaks much more for me than a photo of me celebrating the victory of my grandmother’s team. But it’s not that we don’t love Argentines, we just don’t want to say we’re from Argentina because people would be offended. When I say where I come from, it doesn’t mean that I don’t respect my heritage. I am happy Mexican. “I was born in the United States, of Mexican descent and of Argentine blood.”
Just as there were fans who canceled the artist because she made her “Argentinism” public, there are others who come to her songs for the first time after discovering her on different platforms or listening to her in her various collaborations . At 20 years old and with a career ahead of him, he is focused on moving forward. He does it with his head held high and recognizes the roots of both his parents, even if the football fans get angry.