Carolina Deslandes: the Portuguese pop sensation

0:13Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. I'm Fernando Augusto Pacheco and on today's show I speak with Portuguese singer Carolina Deslandes. If you've been listening to Monaco Radio, you will know that we love her music. While in Lisbon, I had a pleasure to meet her and discuss her new album that was made for the dance floor, Chorar no Clube.

0:42Carolina Dizlende, it's a pleasure talking to you. I love your music. Thank you so much. We play your song, Monaco Radio, inside me especially. Tell us, Carolina, I know you're a big name, big music name in Portugal, being, I think, your last album. But tell us, how did you start in your music career? I know you started in a TV show as well in Portugal. So tell us a bit more. So I come from a family of lawyers. No one in my family is related to the arts whatsoever. I don't have a singer, a writer, a painter. I don't have like anyone related to the arts. And my mother and father had me when they were really young.

1:22My mother was 20 and my father was 19. So when I first started showing that I wanted to write and then that I wanted to sing, they were really scared for me because both of them had to stop their education to become parents. And they had like high expectations for me. like they wanted me to succeed and to be this lawyer and then like this have this degree they have all that they had all this expectation so they were really concerned at first because when I started singing you have no female names in pop music in Portugal like none you have women who were and still are lead singers to bands and you have the father singers that are mainly women but you didn't have women in pop.

2:08So it wasn't really a real possibility of living by doing music. But I was really drawn to it, and I found so much peace while writing my songs and singing them. Our family went through a lot of difficult stuff while I was growing up, and it was the only way for me to deal with that. It was to sing and to write and to create. safe space for myself and so I started recording when I was 15 and I recorded a chorus of a song that became like a huge hit in Lisbon but we have no label it was just like you know that time where you organic yeah people were sending it through like the messenger and through chats and everything and they were like oh this 15 year old girl she's recording this chorus in English she has a weird voice and so I realized like people actually like hearing me sing because what I liked doing the most was the writing part I only sang because I didn't know anyone who would sing my poems and so I started going to the studio and what I love the most looking back now is that I was always so disciplined when it came to my music first time I went to the studio it became like a regular thing for me to write and to record and to do all of that stuff so then I went to the talent show because I was studying in jazz school I dropped college I went to I went to go and study music I was working in a restaurant and I applied to study in London at London music school and I got in I was accepted and my mother said that she didn't have the means to pay for it and And we tried everything and I tried like working in bars plus the restaurant, but it was still like really hard for me.

4:01And Portuguese Idol was on and the bigger price was a scholarship to study at the school that I got admitted in, but didn't have the money to pay. Really? That's amazing stuff. So my mother was like, why don't you try it? And I'm like, do you think, do you think I have a chance? She's like, I don't know, go ahead and try it. So I tried it and I ended up in third place. But I got the people's attention. So people started knowing me. I had a big, big, big, big group of big online community at the time already. And so I toured. I did the idol tour. I did a couple of jobs in advertising. And I got the money and I went to London.

4:45and when I was finishing my degree, someone called me here in Portugal and said, we want to set up a meeting with you because we really think that you have a chance of recording an album and everything. And so I dropped everything and I came back and I did my first record and I released it and it was really bad until it got really good. That's how things go, right? And you mentioned that Portugal never had like, especially recently, like a pop star, a female pop star. You did it. But from what I've been reading about you and your social media, you did it your way. Because you're still outspoken.

5:29You're you, if I can say that. Even though you were an idol, you're definitely not a, how do you say that, a manufactured pop star in that sense, right? Yes. I think that was like my biggest problem and also my biggest achievement at the same time because I was never want to be tamed and I don't mean this like oh I want to be rebellious just for the sake of it it's not like that but it's like I started doing that tv show and doing music and people made me feel always that I had to look a certain way and that I was always failing Since I got into Idol, they were always commenting on my body, always commenting on my weight, always changing the way I dressed.

6:12My father was going through a really hard time at the time dealing with addiction, and I didn't want to talk about it because he didn't talk about it. And it's a history to tell, it's not mine. And they really pressured me, like, you should sell a media conference and tell them about your father. They wanted me to play a certain character, and I never did that. And to this day, I never did that. I made peace with the fact that when you are true to your convictions and to your opinions and to the way you want to live your life, you're not going to be everyone's cup of tea. There's no way. There's no way.

6:51Especially when you're living in a time where women's rights are being questioned again. We're going backwards. We're going backwards. Social media as well. Things can get quite toxic, right? Yes, and it got really toxic and it got really bad. But what people don't know about me is that I had it tough since I was born. So you're not going to break me. It would have taken like a lot more to break me. And so I just kind of, and my friends are like, you really don't give a fuck if you're hated, do you? And I'm like, no. But I lose my sleep if you're my friend and I hurt you. if you're my friend and I neglected your feelings or your grief or I wasn't there when you needed me or I was too centered on my career to call you back and that hurted you in a way I lose my sleep I'm hard on myself when it comes to that if my mother is sad with something that I've done if I feel like I'm not being the mother I want to be that makes me feel really uneasy but But how am I going to change my life and my perception of things and my perception of myself by something that someone is saying that someone that never sat at a table with me?

8:08I never had a conversation with you. You don't know me. And I think that it became really common for people to hate in a very specific and strong way, hate on people that they don't know. like how can you hate someone so much that's not even in your life you've never seen them you've never like talked to them in in real life and so i'm like okay this is the price you pay for having an opinion for making songs about what you believe in for for saying certain things and what what made me sad is that now they don't do it anymore but the people who work with me sometimes were like, why did you have to tell that?

8:55You knew you were going to get canceled. I'm like, what am I supposed to say? You don't want to lose in your mouth or something. Yes. When people ask me about the elections or people ask me about war or people ask me, am I going to be the person who says I don't have an opinion on that? I do. I do have an opinion on that. And I think that we should all have an opinion and we should all speak our minds because not having an opinion nowadays is a political statement too and let's be clear i mean some of your opinions are good you're anti-racism that's a good thing how can people you know because you know what i think people are still stuck in a narrative and that's i blame it on our education on that narrative that we were the conquerors we went on our ships and we were so brave and we gave other people like an education.

9:53And they're like, no, you invaded land. You stole from them. You raped the women. You raped the children. You made them follow a religion. Otherwise, you would burn them alive. And now you want to talk about being invaded back when people are moving to your country and like searching for a job or searching for a different life or how is it your right to do whatever you want to do and put it on your national anthem and glorify all the things you've done and now you feel invaded because people are moving to your country. And so when you say you're anti-racist, all the Karens jump out of their caves and are like, no, because you should defend your race and being a real Portuguese woman.

10:42What the fuck does that even mean? You are a real Portuguese. We are all a mix of a bunch of different things, different cultures, of different places, because human beings have been traveling around the world since the beginning of times. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? And I think that people, because these movements are very aggressive and very violent, people became too scared to speak their truth. and I don't judge. I've been scared too. I thought to myself, I'm a mother of three kids. I'm with them alone, like all of the time. What's going to stop a crazy man from like jumping into my window or breaking my door?

11:30Nothing. But like, if I stop, they win every time and we cannot have that. We cannot have that. and so I stopped blaming myself like anytime I said something and made like this big headline and people were like here she goes again and I'm like is it my fault? no is this wrong? is this subject wrong? yes are you on the good side of the story in your vision of things? yes so suck it up suck it up I agree I agree very much.

12:23Karina, I also want to talk to you about your last album, Chorar no Club. First of all, what a great name to cry in a club. But I have to say I love your music, but I love the kind of the disco flavor of this album as well. What was the inspiration? Were you thinking about the time you were dancing? Tell us a bit more about the concept for the album. So I got known by the public here in Portugal with an album I made when I was 24. And it's an album about becoming a mother, becoming a mother at a young age, falling in love. And all the things that were like anti-pop stars too, because they were like, no, you need to be sexy.

13:06No one wants to see a mother singing about her kids. I'm like, fuck you. Nobody wants to hear you. That's one thing I know. Let me think about how I'm feeling. And so then my kids got bigger, and I started coming back to places of myself that have been on hold. And I think that's a natural thing to go through when you become a mother. And before music started working out for me, like and i had the chance to make records and everything i used to work at clubs i worked at clubs like my whole life i used to be the host like everybody put your hands up everybody i i sang like eminem's verses uh ushers yeah yeah i remember that time yeah good times and it was such an important part of my life because that's when i first had like the the the feeling of grabbing the microphone and grabbing people's attention and like now uh it's a more calm song and you cannot lose the crowd so let's make a game so I want to hear you scream and I will put your hands up and now let's do this and now let's do that and through that time while I was always looking so happy and being the host and you I had all these friends I was really depressed and a bunch of my friends felt that way too that's why it's called crying in the club because people assume that when you're a teenager and when you're young you go to parties because you're reckless and you're irresponsible and I believe that you go to parties and you meet up with your friends because you want to get away from something you want to disappear for for a moment and that's what got me into going out and partying and working until five in the morning because I I wanted to forget about my life and about who I was for a second, even just for a second.

15:04My kids are bigger now. And I started remembering, remembering those times, listening back to the songs that I used to listen to. And I really had this urge to make music that you feel like dancing to, but also speaks about very vulnerable things. and I found out that that's very common in electronic and house music and disco music that you're dancing to a very sad poem and you don't even realize the poem is sad until one day you're drunk, you're on the dance floor and the poem is talking directly into your heart and you're like, oh my God, this person wrote this song about me and I remember when the song Pumped Up Kicks exploded all the other kids with the popped up kicks and this one day I was like 4 in the morning I was having a drink and I'm like wow the lyrics are really violent, what the fuck does this mean and I looked it up and it was about a shooting in a school all the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run outrun my gun and I was like, this is so interesting, how you can make a crowd dance to such such a sad story but you're also bringing a very important subject to the table and so that was the mood board for the album it was like dancing through sadness dancing and it was also an invitation to not be sad on your own i had a very public depression in 2021 after my divorce everyone knew I was suffering my album is really the chaos album is really angry and really sad and so I have this will to make an album that celebrates life but doesn't cover the sad parts so it was like an invitation my heart is gonna still be broken sometimes and I'm gonna feel lonely sometimes but let me talk about this with my friends, let me accept your dinner invitation.

17:13Let me go to that party. Let me dance. Let me dance it out because I believe that there's an occasion in every person's life where you realize like my friends saved my life. Actually, they did. They brought me back to life. And so it's like an invitation to dance through sadness. It is what it is. It really is that. I love Pinsidey Mim. What can you tell us about this song? Thank you so much. I was listening to Adele's album. I really like her two first albums. One of my favorite albums. And then I was listening to a few more songs. And I heard Someone Like You, which is a big, big song. And I was listening to it.

17:55And I thought to myself, I'm not as mature as she is. Because I don't hope you find anything. I'm bitter. I'm still bitter. Like, I'm not that kind of mature person yet. and so I was like no one wants to be a villain in a song or in a movie or in a play it's very hard to admit that you can be the toxic one sometimes and so I decided to make a song about kind of feeling good that you're suffering and you're in a bad place because you lost me because I was in a bad place too. And so like not sugarcoating the thing that, no, I don't care. I just want you to be happy. No, I want you to go through a bad time for a short period, but please do suffer.

18:45And so I made that song. The lyrics are like, it all starts with, I could almost cry, but I'm not a good liar. And I really hope you lose your sleep over me. I really hope you lose your sleep for thinking about me. and it says, I'm sorry if I sound immature, but I really don't hope you find anyone. I hope you spend the rest of your life finding people and thinking like, but she was the best because I don't believe I was the best. And I had so much fun doing it because I feel like we are so afraid to show our ugly parts. We are so, here we are on social media with our white houses and with our kids, with the same clothes and all learning how to bake and how to play the harp.

19:36And I believe that we're all just a big, giant mess doing our best. And I think that that's okay. And especially when it comes to love, nobody's always right. Nobody's always doing the right thing. And I was always writing songs from the victim's perspective up until now. Like, you broke my heart. you betrayed me, you lied to me. And then I looked at my songs, I'm like, I'm a pain in the ass too. Like, I am complicated too. I'm a pain in the ass too. I'm not like this flower, this fragile flower that I pretend to be in my songs. I've hurt people too, I've been toxic too, so I gave that space in this album.

20:23It was the first time I've done it. And it felt so liberating to me. I was like, yeah, this is fun. It feels like a liberating album. Yeah, it is, it is, it is. There's another amazing song you did with Yolanda as well, which is super cool. And I was going to ask you, because I think Portugal has a great music scene now. Even countries from other Lusophone countries, like Brazil, Angola, they usually come here, you know, sometimes. I think Lisbon is quite a good epicenter of music today. Would you agree with that? Yes. I am a big, big, big fan of my colleagues. Like, I'm always looking for new music, searching for new artists.

21:04Now I'm super pregnant, so I'm kind of touring and staying home. But I'm the one who buys the tickets to go see live shows because I do believe that we have one of the best music scenes I know. Because I think that because of that difference, you get a lot of different cultures, people coming from all over the world like my grandparents come from this country like my boyfriend his mother is from Alentejo but his father is from Cape Verde so there's like this huge mix he loves our traditional songs but he also loves like Morna and there's such a mix and he's a musician and a singer too and you can hear it all the places where he gets his musical influence from so I think it's very diverse it's very how can you it's very genuine I don't believe but the most courageous projects do not have radio airplay do not have big numbers and that's okay because I think that we're getting there we're getting there but what really frustrates me is that you have like 2 000 places where you can have avocado toast and brunch you have 2 000 places where all the tiktokers from all over the world come to take pictures and say oh lisbon is the coolest city in the world so let the culture match the sightseeing you cannot have like this amount of tourism and this amount of like coolness associated with your geographic location, with your architecture, with your fashion style, and not and keep gatekeeping all the big radios and all the big venues to the same 10 or 20 artists.

23:00It's boring. Especially when you have the talent available here. Yes, and there's not because all the small venues are closing. they're turning them into hotels into hostels into whatever and so you're losing the possibility to go out on a friday night and to discover a band when was the last time you've had that like i remember going to small venues and listening to artists who are now huge but like listening to their first gig to their second gig and be like you're gonna be huge i just know it i feel it and now you don't have that you can have a big online platform here in Portugal but you have nowhere to play your gig and the person who's buying concerts is not going to buy a concert from a cool new artist that only a group of people they want the big names but everybody wants the big names and what you're getting is our culture and our our music despite the the underground scene is sounding a lot like we're all doing the same thing, and it's not true.

24:08You're just not giving other artists the opportunity to really fit in. And it's frustrating, and I think that that's got to change. Like, people really need to give a different music a chance. And, yeah, because it's sad. It's sad that artists have this many talents and invest so much in their projects and still have to work two, three jobs because they cannot live from their music. It makes me mad. It really does. It makes me mad too. But listen, Carolina, muito obrigado.

24:59I hope I don't sleep anymore. I'll think.

25:06Thank you, Carolina. It was a pleasure. Chorar no Clube is out now. I'm Fernando Gusto Pacheco. The show was edited by Elliot Greenfield. Thank you for listening.