We first met Nathy Peluso in lockdown back in 2020, via Zoom, looking effortlessly stylish in her apartment in a baggy outfit. She had that instant charm, ease, and friendliness of a chica del barrio (Saavedra, Buenos Aires, in her case) that is so characteristically porteña.
“Quarantine taught me the art of patience," she told us back then. "I think it made us all part of something and how can that be a bad thing?”
Indeed perhaps the pandemic was no bad thing for this Argentine-born, Spanish-raised singer. Her self-released debut mixtape Esmeralda, unleashed two contrasting singles onto the world, which spread like wildfire over the internet. In ‘Business Woman’ she played the empowered, glamour dominatrix, armoured with full theatrics and multiple costumes. In Buenos Aires, she was stripped back and vulnerable, singing nostalgically from her bedroom in Madrid, punctuated with clips from her childhood in Buenos Aires.
“Buenos Aires allowed me to connect more with an intimate side of myself. The nostalgia, the melancholy, all seen through a day in quarantine. The song is like a portal into the different places within my character.”
We predicted then that Nathy was going to get big. And indeed in 2021, signed to Sony, her first album Calambre, catapulted her onto the global stage. It won the 2021 Latin Grammy for Best Alternative Album and, at the show, she celebrated her collaboration Pa Mis Muchachos with Christina Aguilera, Becky G and Nicki Nicole. Calambre was later nominated for Best Latin Rock Album at the GRAMMYs and Nathy ended the year as one of the most nominated artists, tallying up 9 nominations.
After headlining her first-ever arena shows in Argentina, Chile and Spain, in 2022 Peluso closed her stage at Coachella scoring the “best things we saw” accolades from Rolling Stone and Billboard. NME hailed her as, “Rosalía, Rihanna, Christine & The Queens, Grace Jones and The Terminator in one bewilderingly awesome package.” To boot, her 'BZRP Music Sessions #36' became one of its most successful, with 355 million views.
“Last year was an unforgettable year for me." she tells us, now in Barcelona, he new home. "Having the opportunity to take the Calambre tour to more than 10 countries, travel with an amazing team and band members who are like family to me, to play at festivals such as Ceremonia in Mexico and Coachella, to open at Sonar (Barcelona) in the city where I live and to do the two most incredible shows of my life in Buenos Aires…absorbing that incredible energy that Argentines give, all filled me with an enormous happiness. Also the process of composing and producing new music, which started in 2022, gave me a lot of satisfaction.”
Peluso was born in 1995 in Luján, a city in the province of Buenos Aires, and was raised in the Saavedra, a neighbourhood in the Argentine capital. At 9 she emigrated to Spain with her family. She first resided in Alicante and, at the age of 16, began to perform at hotels and restaurants in Torrevieja, mainly classic songs by Frank Sinatra, Etta James or Nina Simone.
How was it growing up with those changes?
“I had a happy childhood, surrounded by love and stimulation that inspired my interest in music and dance from a young age,” she remembers. “My dad is a reflective and intellectual person. I think from him I’ve inherited my ability to articulate thoughts, a great love of culture and respect for intelligence. But my mum is probably the person who most influenced me. Her spirit of freedom, playfulness and magic energy are all very special and I carry with me always.”
Her parents, she says, introduced her to a wide variety of music while growing up, from Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles, Brazilian artists like Caetano Veloso and João Gilberto, Latin American folk artists such as Atahualpa Yupanqui even classic salsa like Ray Barretto.
“That’s why in my music I try to exhibit all the musical styles that I like,” she says. “I’ve always identified with rap because it tells the truth. Hiphop was always inevitable for me, its passion hit me straight like an arrow. But at the same time, I was shaped by so many genres as a child, from soul to bossa nova, jazz to salsa, and now, as an adult, I try to project what made me in everything I do.”
Despite a clear ambition to be the next superstar, Nathy isn’t afraid to show it in her mixed identity in her music. At the very beginning, with Buenos Aires, she marked out where she came from by choosing the band of Luis Alberto Spinetta, one of the greatest Argentine singer-songwriters of the 80s.
“I wanted to work with the band of Spinetta, because he has that sound of Argentina, it was a very emotive and magical experience for me.”
That video was full of nostalgia, a particularly Argentine trait, along with irreverence and the idea that you can do anything you want. But this brand of confidence also comes from the immigrant experience which, Nathy says, makes you resilient and multi-faceted, and helped shape who she is as an artist.
“As an immigrant, you learn to adapt and absorb different cultures. You tend to spend a lot of time with other immigrants so it’s not just a question of adapting to the host country but also to an environment of diverse people with different backgrounds and stories. It’s difficult to evaluate it objectively because it’s part of my identity, but I guess that eclecticism and fusion that characterises me as an artist and person comes from this life experience.”
Indeed the “crossover” aspect, delving into other Latin rhythms like salsa and bachata, has been part of Nathy’s success, even though they are not native rhythms to Argentine.
“Music for me is an investigation, a chance to experiment. I like to work with different genres, always with a lot of respect, trying to incorporate them into my search as an artist,” she says, adding “What’s most important for me, is to use my voice, to hear it deeply in every song and to have fun! I’m an adult, a woman, and the things I talk about reflect my development. Music is a process of discovery and as I grow, the things I’m putting out there are definitely more complex.”
Now at 28, in her latest video Estas Buenissimo (‘you’re so hot, fuck’) as she unashamedly lusts after a guy, Nathy exudes the confidence of a fully-fledged woman who knows what she is and what she wants.
“I found myself thinking; ‘there aren’t many women singing songs to men, telling them they’re hot, but there are a lot of songs the other way around. I wanted to normalize the fact that women can also say what we’re thinking about a person that we like, rather than repress ourselves in order to conform to established behaviour or just to fit in.”
Any girl growing up in Argentina would be familiar with these crippling feminine conventions or machismo and her song and video no doubt speaks to many young women in Spain, Latin America and beyond. Does she find that there is more respect now for women in music that previously?
“There’s a lot more to be done, but I think the explosion of new female voices and movements are helping to forge this path of change that we really need,” Nathy observes. “Machismo is still very entrenched in society, and particularly in the music industry. These are not things that change from one day to the next. It’s important to make sure the change is constant and accompany it with strength and a lot of will.”
To many observers Nathy is more original than Rosalía, not only because she can play and perform in diverse styles with ease, but because the nuances and contradictions she conveys, from fiery and fearless to vulnerable and nostalgia (like the city of Buenos Aires itself), ring true. She reminds me of a kind of Argentine Missy Elliot, I suggest, which makes her laugh.
“All I want to bring something new and tell a story through my songs and videos, tell my history. The characters I create in music videos all have their own histories, their own dramas and look; their fashion is a tool for me,” she says, adding: “I feel really fortunate to be part of this generation of Argentine artists who are reaching a wider audience, It’s a great moment for music in Spanish and for Argentina in particular.”
Of course confidence and insecurity are a double-edged sword in the music business, particularly when you are aware of the greats in history, as she clearly is.
“The truth is, when I dream, I dream very big. If you ask me the one person that I would love to work with it’s Stevie Wonder, that’s all I’m asking. Ha ha!”
And do you speak English? I ask. Would you sing in English?
“I speak English, although I’m still studying and perfecting, and sometimes I use it in my songs. I don’t limit myself when I’m writing and I’m prepared to use whatever language suits best what I want to express. Naturally my native language is always present, but I can perfectly mix with other languages and expressions.”
In the meantime, with the success of world festivals under her belt, a book, millions of streams, a contract with Desigual, what is next for Nathy Peluso?
“Honestly, for me, my music is party. I want to share it with everyone, dancing with the world and sharing my songs. 2022 was a year of hard work, but also changes and life balance, and I’m really grateful and looking forward to 2023 which will be full-on…you’ll soon find out…it’s super exciting.”
Charismatic, fearless and brave, this is a girl on a mission and evidently only the start as she keeps exploring and experimenting with her sound, giving everyone little insights into the vibrant, colourful world of Nathy Peluso.
