Danna Paola has been performing and singing for greater than 20 years. And she or he’s solely been alive barely longer.
The bilingual performer, who launched new album “Ok.O.” in January, was simply 4 years outdated when she was solid on the Mexican model of “Sesame Avenue.” She launched her first album two years later and appeared in dozens of novelas, together with kids’s classics “La Niña de la Mochila Azul” and “Atrévete a Soñar.”
Paola was 18 when she took on the position of Elphaba within the first Spanish-language manufacturing of the musical “Depraved.” It broke box-office information in Mexico and solidified her transition to grownup star. She voiced Rapunzel within the Spanish-language model of Disney’s “Tangled,” was a decide on the “La Academia” singing competitors and has a central position within the common Netflix sequence “Elite.”
Paola, now 25, is hitting one other profession excessive with “Ok.O.” and the only “Calla Tú” ( “Shut Up, You.”) Each have topped Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music charts worldwide. She has an upcoming livestream efficiency, “Welcome to My Break Up Get together,” on Feb. 13.
Q: Releasing an album throughout a pandemic should create a brand new set of challenges.
When: 8 p.m. Feb. 13
The place: streamtime.retailer
Particulars: $12.88
A: It’s difficult. It’s been probably the most unbelievable yr and the very best yr on a private degree and in my skilled life, as an artist, as a girl. I had loads to study, and I discovered. This album was additionally a variety of inventive remedy for me. It was two years composing these songs from my very own experiences. This album was a catharsis in my profession and my life. It was essential for me to share it, to go it on and switch the web page with all these busy feelings.
Q: What was necessary so that you can get throughout via the music?
A: I feel realness, emotions, real love and all this heartbreak. I feel visually what I needed to convey was this catharsis on a visible degree of three essential colours. Black is the complete darkness {that a} relationship has, {that a} coronary heart has. All of us have these darkish moments, this character that comes out when you’re damage. The colour purple, which after all means love, ardour, energy and can also be certainly one of my favourite colours. And white, meaning peace, once you wave the white flag and say, “OK, that’s it. I hand over.”
Q: Does listening to it take you again to these moments?
A: Sure, after all. Songs have recollections, feelings. It occurs with previous songs. It was a damaged coronary heart that made me write my first track, which was “Ojos Extranos,” in 2007. It comes again abruptly each time I sing it, these feelings, particularly once I carry out dwell. That is gonna be the primary time ever I sing the entire album (throughout the digital efficiency). It’s gonna be onerous however wonderful.
Q: Was the “Calla Tú” video filmed with COVID-19 in thoughts?
A: In fact we did it very rigorously, taking all the protection measures, which has been difficult. We created the video in per week. I began enthusiastic about the idea, all of the highly effective colours that you just see within the video. It makes me really feel very proud to have been in a position to direct the video. It was essential to transmit all this energy via my dancers, who’re carrying nude-colored costumes that symbolize pores and skin, with highly effective choreography that’s sensual on the similar time. For me, and everybody, it was tough getting it carried out in such a short while. But it surely’s additionally now helped us put issues collectively a lot quicker. I have already got one other video carried out that you just’ll see quickly.
Q: Have been you stunned by the nice and cozy reception for the album?
A: I didn’t actually anticipate that. Simply having the album completed was my aim. It is a plus now that each one this craziness is occurring. It’s been three years since I returned to music and began writing songs and actually engaged on this venture. It’s one thing very comforting, a present. In fact, numbers aren’t a very powerful factor. However the public’s response is essential to me, so this tells me that it’s going effectively, that individuals need to take heed to it.
Q: Do you know from the start that you just wouldn’t stick with only one factor?
A: I feel every thing flowed from the start. Once I was a bit woman, all of this was a recreation for me. I used to be pretending to be an actress, to be a singer. I wasn’t considering, “That is my work.” Then I noticed it was my work, so I began to be extra skilled, studying my lyrics, my strains, taking performing and singing lessons. It was by no means a straight line. I’ve at all times been a dreamer. I’ve a tattoo that claims, “My future is limitless.” And that’s really what I consider, to proceed having enjoyable, to create and to proceed opening my coronary heart to artwork.
Q: Tackling the position of Elphaba in “Depraved” can be a problem for any singer. And also you had been a teen.
A: Musical theater is a lot of what shaped me as a singer. It was an enormous problem for me. When this venture arrived, I needed to retire from the business completely. I not needed to behave or sing. I had labored for therefore lengthy in telenovelas that I not felt like myself. I used to be at all times informed what to do, what to sing. I felt like a puppet. I mentioned, “If I do that and I get this position, I’m gonna keep right here perpetually.” I needed to consider in myself as an artist, as a singer. I by no means knew that I may sing like that, ever, in my life. It was like a grasp class in performing and singing. It made me who I’m right this moment.
Q: It feels like Elphaba saved you in some ways.
A: I recognized a lot with Elphaba. I felt like this bizarre bug in my very own life. She was a inexperienced woman, and I used to be a really shy woman. I felt like a weirdo. It felt like everybody was me and criticizing me. Then, all of the expectations after I received that position. “What? How can this little woman who’s carried out telenovelas be Elphaba?” I labored so onerous to consider in myself, as much as that opening evening. And calla tu a todos.
