The journalists who these days, as a preview of his tour, have interviewed Camilo, have seen hotel rooms like the one in which he quotes us before: in movies, above all. It’s nerve-wracking, since the ‘Inside to Outside’ tour is about to start, and it’s cool, as the Madrid sun viciously licks the sidewalks. He has the posture of the mustache on his lips, always friendly. And a good number of matters to attend to: photos, questions, cell phones that don’t stop ringing, prizes, flights. Even a girl.
The Colombian artist will tour 20 European cities, and now he is digging with one foot in the sand to take a run. The road awaits you as an escape from a host of hits: from Pamplona to Girona, stopping at stages in London, Milan and Paris.
The one in Mérida, at the Romano stadium with Dani Martín on June 16, seems like one of the most special.
Does this bore you, Camilo? About the interviews, I mean. I have reviewed the notebooks of colleagues and we all have something similar in mind: «I have been attending the media for more than five hours. If I had to go back to the beginning of the morning with the strength I have now, I would die. I am very grateful for the good reception and the interest that my music has in Spain, my second home. This is part of the job.” The clock, the half-finished juices and the canapés that look like the end of a birthday party indicate that we should be the last.
It has sold 200,000 tickets in this country. From the outside, his life walks in flip flops. Everything is happiness around their singles: a garden, white sheets, vacations. What remains on the other side of fame? I ask him. What is wrong with this popularity that prevents you from moving down the street without interruption? “Let’s stop fooling around. I don’t have a normal life, to think that would be hypocritical. Incredible things happen to me every day that happen to very few people in the world. Going unnoticed for me is very difficult. Even with a cap and mask, there are those who recognize you by your nails or earring. The pints I wear, the clothes I wear…, it doesn’t help. People tell you their stories on the street. You are important to people you don’t know! That never ceases to amaze me. It amazes me, although it terrifies me to normalize things in this life that I lead, which is clearly not normal for a 28-year-old boy.
What is the most cumbersome part of the job? «The worst are the structures that surround the songs. What is built around them and what is expected, which generates a lot of pressure on me. There are times when I’m writing and I need to stop, because I can’t think with that feeling that it has to work, that millions of people are going to listen to it, that it has to pass some filters… It’s really hard for me».
Do your favorite topics match those of your audience? “In my case, not exactly. I know the success of a song beforehand, just because I’m doing it, because for me it’s successful to the extent that I can express myself through it. If I reach that state of concentration, where I overturn what I am feeling at that moment, it is a success. Whether it works or not depends on factors that escape me. The songs of mine that have been heard the least are surely the most important for a small group of people who follow me. Everything has to be taken care of.”
He has composed for Bad Bunny, Maluma, Karol G, Sebastián Yatra, Juanes and countless colleagues. Did it make you angry to get rid of any of those songs? ‘No pajamas’, for example. Or ‘She doesn’t have a boyfriend anymore’, maybe. «When I am writing for others I am like a womb for rent. I know before I begin that this creature is not for me. I also act as an actor. The first ones who bet on me were women. I had to put myself in his shoes to write that. When it’s for me, yes I can be me. It’s another story.”
Do you remember the first one you did, if there ever was one? «Yes, but luckily I didn’t record it. I have revisited it on occasion and it is a horror. And fortunately, she also did it with those that came later: ‘Tutu’, ‘Vida de rico’, ‘Millions’…
Medium Spotify belongs to Camilo Echeverry, who for a little over a couple of years has monopolized the loudspeakers of any bar or nightclub. He, he says, doesn’t listen to much music. At least not on the plane that brought him from Miami. «I take the opportunity to sleep when the girl falls asleep. I’m saturated with so much music at a time like this, but if I have to put on something, I don’t doubt it: llanera music, as we say there. Colombia and Venezuela. I suggest C4 Trio, very good. Also Simón Díaz, the legend, Reynaldo Armas…».
If this were the radio we would say goodbye with them as a backdrop. Of course, the recorder turns off and the real world rampages through the room, sweeping away everything in its path. Cameras, spotlights, production and press crews, hotel staff, agents, promoters who come and go and never leave… He is at the center, looking for that moment of lucidity, which will mean that we close the door from the outside. let me go And everyone. That we leave him struggling alone with the peace that opens the tap of his best songs.
