María José Llergo was practically vibrating with excitement, or nerves, or both. Just days before the 29-year-old singer releases her first full-length album, Ultrabelleza, there she was, answering questions about her music from the Spanish actress Rossy de Palma and surrounded by an invitation-only audience.
The interview was part of a listening event in a photo studio in Madrid, in the Valdeacederas neighborhood well north of the city center. The studio was painted white, with a high ceiling. Images from the album art blown up to a huge size hung here and there, and Llergo’s name and album title were projected on a white screen against the far wall. She and de Palma were seated opposite one another on a large, square platform maybe two feet high, in white chairs that were all right angles, across a square white table. Guests sat on the floor in a circle around the platform, listening as Llergo described her influences, her musical intent and her gratitude for their support.
Between questions, Llergo would call for a DJ set up in another corner of the room to play a song from the album. She mouthed along to the words, occasionally singing audibly. She stretched her arms toward de Palma, who looked on amused, sometimes filming Llergo on her phone, or pulling her to her feet to dance. “We’re all family here,” de Palma said.
Ultrabelleza is certainly danceable. Though the album is deeply rooted in flamenco, which Llergo heard growing up in a working class family in a rural part of Córdoba in southern Spain, the songs have cutting-edge pop production with lung-rattling beats and washes of synthesizers. Llergo is not just immersed in the sound of flamenco: she’s also drawing on its cultural roots as the music of a marginalized people, the Romani. Los gitanos used song as a balm for the discrimination and exploitation they faced from mainstream Spanish society, which co-opted flamenco as a symbol of Spain and left its originators behind. Llergo stands with them, and with the underdog in general, on Ultrabelleza, finding strength in the determination to rise above one’s circumstances and shine.
In Valdeacederas, Llergo seemed like she couldn’t quite believe her circumstances. De Palma gushed over the songs, the crowd’s applause was rapturous and The New York Times had just posted a profile of her. The structured part of the evening ended with Llergo and de Palma dancing on the platform with members of the crowd while waiters handed out glasses of wine and, in the most Spanish thing ever, circulated with large cutting boards heaped with thinly sliced jamón iberico for snacking.
I came across Llergo as I wandered through the crowd afterward, and told her how much I like her songs. “I like that you like them,” she responded with a brilliant smile, but it sounds better in Spanish: “Me gusta que te gustan.”