October 12, 2025 • 29 mins
Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler knows what it's like to live different lives within one. An ENT doctor until his early 30’s, he then decided to leave medicine behind, as well as his life in Uruguay, to pursue a music career in Spain. He became the first Uruguayan to win an Oscar with his song “Al otro lado del río.” In this episode of Latino USA, the multiple award-winning musician walks us through key moments in his career, including the creative process behind his latest album “Tinta y tiempo”—and drops a few gems about his personal life on the way.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm Lisaakazawa. Join me on season two of Stars and
Stars with Lisa, where I sit down with some of
the most exciting stars of our time to find out
what their birth chart reveals about their life's purpose, their relationships,
and their challenges. Winner of the Signal Award for Most
Inspirational Podcast, Stars and Stars will help you make sense
of today's complicated times. Even if you're an astrology skeptic.
(00:29):
You can listen to Stars and Stars with Lisa wherever
you get your podcasts. Don't forget to follow the show
so you never miss an episode.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
From Futuromia. It's Latino USA. I'm Maria your Hosa.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Love on Love one.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Drexler, the famous Uruayyan singer songwriter, first caught the world's
attention in two thousand and five when his song al
Otro Lado del Rio was in the movie The Motorcycle Diaries.
Jorge became the first Uruayan to ever win an Oscar.
This is the first Academy award and nomination for fort
(01:15):
Hay Drexler, and this was the first time a Spanish
language song received an Academy Award.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Clavo Miremone Lavua Jevo tureimon Elmeo.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I spoke with Jorge about key moments in his life
as a young artist, from growing up as the son
of a Holocaust survivor to becoming a doctor and then
deciding to drop his career in order to pursue music.
He also tells us why he turned down the opportunity
to become a global pop star just after winning the Oscar,
(01:50):
and of course we talk about his album Binta Epimpo
and why it almost didn't come to life. Our interview
first aired in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
No No Ma's mascotro Vicu.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Nina.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Okay, first of all, welcome to Latino, USA. I was
trying to remember when I interviewed you last. It turns
out I spoke with you in two thousand and five.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah to the Oscars.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I think, yes, right after the Oscars, and you were
so happy. Yeah, and here we are comest us.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
Well, I'm happy, I'm in New York. It's really a
pleasure to be here. Thank you first of all for
inviting me, for having me here today.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Here's the crazy thing. So as I was prepping for
the interview, and of course I'm reading about you, listening
to your music all the time, which was a gift.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
And then I at one point I turned around.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I was like wundo itra otto rino. My father was
an ear nose and throat doctor. Really my father was
doctor Raulins from the University of Chicago. Helped to create
the cochlear implant, eliztabs to the and gone the electron microscope.
Speaker 6 (03:12):
My father and my mother both were illnos and throat doctors.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I helped them for six years in surgery.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
We never did implantic or cochlear implant, but we would
work a lot with many illness that you that affect
the hearing. The cockle is a little harp that turns
two and a half times inside a shell.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
And that's inside your that's inside.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Your ear, and that's the harp that resonates with the sounds.
If I saying there's.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
One little string in that heart that's raising as if
you do it with a guitar or with a real heart.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
You know.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
I never finished illnoson throat. I stopped studying in the
second of the third year of the post degree. But
I do love Ironos's throat. I do love physiology and anatomy.
And my my brother is a in t. My sister,
she's a she's an ordontologist, so it's a whole family
of that. I'm the older son of a Jewish family,
(04:14):
half Jewish at least because my mother converted to marry
my father. But she's from Christian Spanish origins, so I
was really supposed to follow the family tradition, those heneracion
as manners. I grew grew up in a very closed
environment Uruguaian dictatorship, the house of two e in t doctors.
(04:36):
All their friends were et doctors, and no musicians around solo.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Just I really had a good life. I had a
very good job.
Speaker 6 (04:47):
But at the same time, all that time, since I
was five years old, I was studying music and I
started writing songs when I was fifteen sixteen, and I
never stopped doing music. So at some point I, when
I looked deeped inside myself, I said, what I really
want to do is to make a living on music.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
So I moved to Spain.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
And your mom and dad were like cc no.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
No, they got completely crazy. When I left. My father
had been training me for six years in secret microsurgery
techniques that he had learned in Germany, and he said,
you're throwing away something that people are graving for. But
you know, I'm a really, really lucky person.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
Even loving this thing, I had another one that I
loved more, so I moved to that one.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Porkala Muru lamento and herusalen la.
Speaker 6 (05:47):
My father, I can't completely understand him, I mean, but
he had He did the same with his own father.
His own father a Jewish immigrant that my father was
born in Berlin too. He escaped the Nazis when he
was five years old in nineteen thirty nine, and his
father lost everything his family.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
They started again in Bolivia.
Speaker 6 (06:06):
They lived in Bolivia for twelve years, in Oruro, in Altiplano.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
In Oruro, in Oruro.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Wait a second, yeah, wait, wait wait from Berliev. Wait
what year are we talking about?
Speaker 6 (06:18):
Nineteen thirty nine until nineteen fifty something like that.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I just am having a moment of your grandfather and
your dad at five years old somehow getting from Berlin
to Duro. Can you just give me the short version
of how the hell that happens?
Speaker 6 (06:37):
German Jews were very, very German. They didn't want to
leave Germany. They felt really proud of being German. They
thought that that was what was happening in the Holocaust
was something that was going to happen to the other Jews,
you know.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Not to them, because they were lighter skinned, and they
were educated, they were wealthy.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
They were like every immigrant. They wanted to release their pasts.
They changed a surname when they came into Germany. They
wanted to have a new identity. They wanted to leave
all the stettle and the Yiddish and although they spoke Yiddish,
they didn't want to speak English at home. They thought
German was better. So they didn't want to live and
they left in the thirty nine after the Crystal Nach,
the moment that they decided to live, it was almost
(07:18):
impossible to live. Already, the only country that stayed open
to Jewish refugees was Bolivia. It was a very brave nation.
I have a song called Bolivia. It's a song that
I wrote to thank you know, the poorest country in
South America giving asylum to one of.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
The richest country in Europe, you know. And we should
not forget that. And obviously and the young cannot and
last conci because that goes back and forth all the time.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
I mean, we we come and we go, and we
receive and we ask for.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
As I look.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Anti from.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
In nineteen fifty one, I think so they entered little
while from scratch. My grandfather built a a short factory.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Like a very Jewish professional Jewish profession.
Speaker 6 (08:27):
He did really good, and at some point he offered
the factory to his two sons, my father and his brother,
and both of them said, I want my own life.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
I want to be a doctor. So that happened again
with me and.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
With him and lad Vermev korason Espera sing Sabermivia.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Okay, So the trauma, the exodus, the fear, the persecution.
Were you growing up with a sense of six million Jewish,
including my own family, were persecuted. How did you understand
that part of your legacy.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
My father is a war child.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
He doesn't trust reality, and he doesn't think that situations
are continuous. He knows that they change, and he knows
that they can change for bad. So he's always been
prepared for that, and he always transmitted that fear and
that you know, that alert to us too. So I
think it takes more than two or three generations to
(09:32):
lose that feeling of you know, the feeling that the
children in Ukrainia are having today that trauma is not
going away easily. I also got my share because I
grew up in a dictatorship. I entered the dictatorship with
nine years and I came.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Out with twenty.
Speaker 6 (09:50):
All my emotional life, my sex life, all my relationship
life was built in a very oppressive system.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
And that's going to take a long time. I had
to write.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
I had to make a record called by just to
take the dictatorship out of my joints because I couldn't dance.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
By Layla while La.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
By Lay, I'm.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
Still fighting that, I'm still Dictatorship is a very It's
inside me and I go everywhere with it.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
And holocaust is also inside me through my father and.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
I read my Starff and s and you.
Speaker 6 (10:40):
In life, if you can celebrate, do celebrate, because celebrating
is a way of acknowledge that you will not always
be able to celebrate.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
So just grasp that little joy that you find.
Speaker 6 (10:53):
Because we come and go from saddness to by lay.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I have a lot of sadness and melancholy my songs too.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
But but if I can celebrate, I think, and I celebrate.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
You know, it's a choice, it's a choice. A man,
Kayla sing pila and la cuela.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
You make this decision to say, my boy, and I'm
going to become an immigrant by your own choice in Spain.
And there were many places that you could choose to live.
What was it about Spain?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
It wasn't a conscious decision.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
I was thirty years old, I wasn't young, and I
had my own flat, my own practice, and I moved
to Spain to share a flat.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
With nine other year wires in.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
Madrid with no money and I think maybe two bathrooms
lightly so.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
More so nice passim.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
Yeah, I'm just playing little cafes for forty people and
not the Nine days later, I met the mother of
my first child, Anna, and of my first son, and
I fell in love with her so well I should
really it wasn't a brain decision.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Actually, stamos vilos, polkist tamos and movie mento.
Speaker 6 (12:22):
But I have to say when I got to Spain,
very quickly I was invited by Joaquin Savina, mervous Spanish musician.
He invited me to perform with him in Spain and
I got to meet through him many other artists that
I admired, and very quickly they started asking me for
compositions and Abilene Victor, Manuel Keetama, Pablo Milanaise Rosario Flores.
(12:51):
At first, my parents were like horrified because I was
throwing a whole life and prosperity and a career outside.
But then I started making a little place for me
in the Spanish music as a writer, and very quickly
they moved to being just sad because I was away.
Love overcame that feeling of I think you ruined your life,
(13:14):
But at some point that they realized that I was.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Really happy and that made them happy too.
Speaker 6 (13:24):
I started making a living of music when I was thirty,
but I started doing good when I was forty already,
and that was the first time I was having a
little success and it came all together.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
You know.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Before that, the first ten years in Spain were really hard.
I didn't sell records. I was a completely failure in
my own selling record history.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Although I was really happy.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
I was writing for other people and I was making
the records I wanted to make.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
That was an important thing. Laplace through my rest plan
to Elviento del.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Bocasus coming up on Latino USA Porte head Drexler's career
as a singer songwriter takes off to the very top.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Stay with us.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Either Lovelazlan.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Welcome back to Latino, USA. And before the break, I
was speaking with Uruwayyan singer songwriter Porthhead Drexler about abandoning
his career as an ear nosen throat doctor and then
making it as a musician in Spain. I wanted to
ask him about the aftermath of winning that Academy Award
(14:56):
in two thousand and five, because Horge became be first
Uruaian to ever win an Oscar and this was the
first time a Spanish language song received.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
An Academy Award.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
You can't get any higher than winning an Oscar and
performing and people falling in love with you as a result,
And then you go into a very dark place. You
end up getting a divorce, and you end up making
an album about your divorce. How do you understand that process,
the falling?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I think it's a natural process.
Speaker 6 (15:31):
That's one thing with prices and with expectations. I mean,
there is no good way out of expectations. If you
do achieve what you expected to achieve, the void that
comes after that. You know, I actually didn't expect to
win that. It was a crazy thing. It was the
first price I got in my life, and it was
the highest after the oscars. I had the choice to
(15:54):
decide whether I wanted to follow the circumstances or to
have agency in my life. Immediately, everybody told me, you
moved to Miami and to la and you know you
have an oscar.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Every door is going to be open.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
You can make your big crossover record, your big Latin
happy crossover record. And I said, okay, but you know
what I have to choose. If I'm going to make
a record in what I am actually feeling, which is sadness,
twelve seconds of darkness the name of the record, A
very dark the darkest record, if I have to follow
(16:29):
my instinct and my truth or if I have to
follow the circumstances. And I said, I'm going to follow
my truth. I mean, it's as that symbol. I got
a divorce. We're already thinking about that for a long time.
But then I fell in love really quickly after the divorce,
(16:49):
and I couldn't cope with that mixture of success and
the happiness and sadness at the same time. Because divorcing
with children, it was the toughest thing that happened in my.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
Life, jos cab Lumbo, the Regresso sing.
Speaker 6 (17:06):
I think it's my most important record actually, and I'm
so proud because after that I realized.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Why am I a songwriter?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
What?
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Why do I write songs for?
Speaker 1 (17:14):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Because you are like a deeply emotional person and you're
connected with all of.
Speaker 6 (17:20):
These and I respect my emotions to more than I
respect the circumstances.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Ok No, sys, So I want to talk about your
(17:51):
evolution as a musician a little bit through your own songs,
and yeah, I'm gonna take you back a little bit.
So I want you to pick a song from your album.
This is Carabe. It's two thousand and eight, okay, three
years after the oscar It's a two hour long live album.
(18:11):
So one song from Caabe that you're like, yeah, this
is this one captures it.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I have the only song that I've co written with
my wife, and it's called Doves Doves bela Dova, which
is a very strange song. It's that's the only song
we wrote together.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
And it's a song try lingual, half in Spanish, a
little bit in Italian and a little bit in English.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
We wrote it together.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
We were in the first years of our relationship and
it's a song I really love that I never got
to air too much.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
You go on a way away time.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
All right, we're gonna move forward to twenty ten. Yeah,
you release a Madla Drama is there and that stands
out for you?
Speaker 6 (19:02):
Yeah, I have two songs that send out Actually after
those wos a very dark record.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
This is a record filled with a.
Speaker 6 (19:09):
In the name ahmar La Trama really open feeling, open
chest feeling.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
It's an homage to Madrid.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
Camino for Madrid and to company.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
I was living order for a long time, but I
fell in love with the city. I fell in love
with this amazing woman. We had this amazing son. And
so there's two songs that one called La tram Listen
Lassi that's dedicated.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
To leonor Signal da Mosquez.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
And there's no the Luca dedicated to my son Luca,
which is when I realized it was going to be
a father and for the second time, and all the
healing that came to my life, not just with having
that second child, that put everything in an order in
(20:08):
your life after a very happy but difficult years, you know,
of transition from one life to another.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
We will be right back, Hey, we're back.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
We're gonna pick up where we left off with what
head Wrexler and talk about his song Plan Maestro, The
master Plan, So planned Maestro. I mean, that's like a
pretty big title, The master Plan. This is on the album.
This is written by your cousin who lives in Venezuela,
(20:55):
who is an astrophysicist. You have a very high performing family.
You talk about having the relationship of humanity close to
you as you write. So you write this song with
your cousin who's in Venezuela when you're in Madrid. How
are you doing it together? And how did this play
(21:15):
into you? Know, you have to have a relationship in
music when you're writing it.
Speaker 6 (21:21):
She's my cousin. She has the same age. I'm only
a few months older than her. So we have this
really strong connection, like an umbilical connection.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
Kria Era del Mesoku Guanda Queesa Slula Visionaria.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
I don't have told this anyone, but we actually operate
like twins with her. We have the same age, We
were best friends where we were children. We shared these
common interests, like we have the same hard disk. You know,
she is a scientist, but she's also a poet, we
always feel this connection. And we started writing songs when
we were fifty five years old. And she's been the
(22:00):
great the biggest influence I had in my in my
music in the last years. When you go to my concert,
the concert is opened by her voice. She speaks for
four minutes talking about the invention of love in the
Mesoproterozoic era.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
One thousand, six.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Hundred years ago, were the first two cells got together.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
It's a love story.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
She wrote this beautiful decimo, which is a very complex
verse form that you have in Mexico in the Sanjarrocho
and the Wapangu. It's a ten verse structure that you
have all over Latin America.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Unbriselos does who's carrying out.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
In Paraham.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
They have the galeron in Venezuela in Peru, Pajaores in Uhy,
Repentistas in Kuba, Pajas in Chile.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
That they use the same verse form everywhere.
Speaker 6 (23:06):
What pang in Mexico come to Panama vers.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So one of the things that you and I are
lucky about, Jorge, is that one that we're still here,
that we're still alive.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
That's a big one.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
That's a big one.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
And you and I are lucky in this one particular way, Jorge,
that you and I still have a little bit of
cred with the younger generations. Yeah, oh, Jo, I mean
you're playing with Dietrees, You're playing with Natalia and so
many others, and I just you know, when you pause
and you think about that, just how do you understand
to process this as we get older and at the
(23:47):
same time that you got some intergenerational cred.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Young people love you too.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
I was taught this by my father actually, when he
was forty he had the Beatles records. It was the
only person in his generation in euro White that would
actually understand that there was a newer world and that
newer world wasn't worse than the older world.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
When when he grew up, and.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
I mean he grew up with jazz music, but he
understood the Beatles and he gave the Beatles to me.
When we got into Bob Marley, he said, can I
hear that again?
Speaker 3 (24:19):
That's really interesting? I mean, who's this guy?
Speaker 6 (24:21):
And it's my music in my generation, but he was
open to my music and he gave me this message.
Older people are still alive. I remember reading a book
about Mario and Treja and asking him this book this
is crazy I was a teenager. It's a book about
a forty year old guy that falls in love. I mean,
that can't be possible. You don't fall in love when
(24:43):
you're forty or fifty. And he said, we have to
have this talk. Yes today, you know love has no age,
beauty has no age, sex has no age, and art
has no age.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
And you can be open to things that are new.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Okay, look oka, look atz Oka, look at Oko.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
I have this world that I started using a few
months ago. That it's called neophobia. Neophobia like the phobia
to the new. It's a generational thing. I think younger
people accept you and listen to you just because you
listen to them.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
That's the secret.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
Because when I hear but Bunny, I tried to understand
what's going on. And I'm not lying when I say
I really admire his work. He's very different from me.
Setangan is his age, which I worked a lot, and
he was one of the other big influences in my music.
Talk my daughter, eleven year old, she comes and shows
(25:47):
me some music.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
I sit down on the floor and I listened very
carefully to her advice. I take it really seriously. It's
like breathing new air for me.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
I want to know what the world is about, just
because I hate being nostalgic. I hate thinking that the
best part of my life has already passed.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
There are great things that I learn right now, and
that you know. My past is beautiful. It's my past.
It's not better than my present.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
Actually, my presence is the only thing that I have,
so it should be I should take it seriously.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
So I love urban music. I listen to urban music
a lot.
Speaker 6 (26:35):
I'm looking forward to working with people that have very
different styles from mine. It's not a record company advice.
It's not a management or a marketing advice.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
I just love being.
Speaker 6 (26:46):
Alive, dmingdim and I love the present. I love dancing
a lot, going out and meeting people and trying to
feel that life is still has a lot of things,
of course, to offer you.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I decantar linamente Luez.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Thank you for offering me this time. It has been
just so much fun.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Thank you, Pimp Didi tim Didi Timo.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
This episode was produced by Patricia Sulvaran. It was edited
by Marta Martinez. It was mixed by Julia Caruso and
Gabriela Bias. Fernando Echavari is our managing editor. The Latino
USA team also includes Roxanna Guire, Jessica Elis, Rebecca Renaldo Junior,
Stephanie LAbau, Andrea Lopez Cruzado, Yorman Marquez, Julieta Martinelli, Monica
(28:03):
Moreles Garcia, JJ Krubin, Adriana Rodriez, Nancy Trujillo, Benile Ramires
and I are co executive producers.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
I'm Your Host Maria Josa.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Latino USA is part of Iheart's Mykeldura podcast network. Executive
producers at iHeart are Leo Gomez and Arlene Santana. Join
us again on our next episode. In the meantime, we'll
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(28:36):
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Speaker 4 (28:39):
Cool bonus content. What's not to love?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Join futuro Plus and you'll be happy you did. Asta
approximayas Chiao.
Speaker 7 (28:50):
Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heising
Simons Foundation, Unlocking knowledge, opportunity and possibilities. More at hsfoundation
dot org. The Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the
front lines of social change worldwide, and the John D.
(29:11):
And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
I'm Lisaakazawa. Join me on season two of Stars and
Stars with Lisa, where I sit down with some of
the most exciting stars of our time to find out
what their birth chart reveals about their life's purpose, their relationships,
and their challenges. Winner of the Signal Award for Most
Inspirational Podcast, Stars and Stars will help you make sense
of today's complicated times. Even if you're an astrology skeptic.
(00:29):
You can listen to Stars and Stars with Lisa wherever
you get your podcasts. Don't forget to follow the show
so you never miss an episode.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
From Futuromia. It's Latino USA. I'm Maria your Hosa.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Love on Love one.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Drexler, the famous Uruayyan singer songwriter, first caught the world's
attention in two thousand and five when his song al
Otro Lado del Rio was in the movie The Motorcycle Diaries.
Jorge became the first Uruayan to ever win an Oscar.
This is the first Academy award and nomination for fort
(01:15):
Hay Drexler, and this was the first time a Spanish
language song received an Academy Award.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Clavo Miremone Lavua Jevo tureimon Elmeo.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I spoke with Jorge about key moments in his life
as a young artist, from growing up as the son
of a Holocaust survivor to becoming a doctor and then
deciding to drop his career in order to pursue music.
He also tells us why he turned down the opportunity
to become a global pop star just after winning the Oscar,
(01:50):
and of course we talk about his album Binta Epimpo
and why it almost didn't come to life. Our interview
first aired in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
No No Ma's mascotro Vicu.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Nina.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Okay, first of all, welcome to Latino, USA. I was
trying to remember when I interviewed you last. It turns
out I spoke with you in two thousand and five.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah to the Oscars.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I think, yes, right after the Oscars, and you were
so happy. Yeah, and here we are comest us.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
Well, I'm happy, I'm in New York. It's really a
pleasure to be here. Thank you first of all for
inviting me, for having me here today.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Here's the crazy thing. So as I was prepping for
the interview, and of course I'm reading about you, listening
to your music all the time, which was a gift.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
And then I at one point I turned around.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I was like wundo itra otto rino. My father was
an ear nose and throat doctor. Really my father was
doctor Raulins from the University of Chicago. Helped to create
the cochlear implant, eliztabs to the and gone the electron microscope.
Speaker 6 (03:12):
My father and my mother both were illnos and throat doctors.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I helped them for six years in surgery.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
We never did implantic or cochlear implant, but we would
work a lot with many illness that you that affect
the hearing. The cockle is a little harp that turns
two and a half times inside a shell.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
And that's inside your that's inside.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Your ear, and that's the harp that resonates with the sounds.
If I saying there's.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
One little string in that heart that's raising as if
you do it with a guitar or with a real heart.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
You know.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
I never finished illnoson throat. I stopped studying in the
second of the third year of the post degree. But
I do love Ironos's throat. I do love physiology and anatomy.
And my my brother is a in t. My sister,
she's a she's an ordontologist, so it's a whole family
of that. I'm the older son of a Jewish family,
(04:14):
half Jewish at least because my mother converted to marry
my father. But she's from Christian Spanish origins, so I
was really supposed to follow the family tradition, those heneracion
as manners. I grew grew up in a very closed
environment Uruguaian dictatorship, the house of two e in t doctors.
(04:36):
All their friends were et doctors, and no musicians around solo.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Just I really had a good life. I had a
very good job.
Speaker 6 (04:47):
But at the same time, all that time, since I
was five years old, I was studying music and I
started writing songs when I was fifteen sixteen, and I
never stopped doing music. So at some point I, when
I looked deeped inside myself, I said, what I really
want to do is to make a living on music.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
So I moved to Spain.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
And your mom and dad were like cc no.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
No, they got completely crazy. When I left. My father
had been training me for six years in secret microsurgery
techniques that he had learned in Germany, and he said,
you're throwing away something that people are graving for. But
you know, I'm a really, really lucky person.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
Even loving this thing, I had another one that I
loved more, so I moved to that one.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Porkala Muru lamento and herusalen la.
Speaker 6 (05:47):
My father, I can't completely understand him, I mean, but
he had He did the same with his own father.
His own father a Jewish immigrant that my father was
born in Berlin too. He escaped the Nazis when he
was five years old in nineteen thirty nine, and his
father lost everything his family.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
They started again in Bolivia.
Speaker 6 (06:06):
They lived in Bolivia for twelve years, in Oruro, in Altiplano.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
In Oruro, in Oruro.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Wait a second, yeah, wait, wait wait from Berliev. Wait
what year are we talking about?
Speaker 6 (06:18):
Nineteen thirty nine until nineteen fifty something like that.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I just am having a moment of your grandfather and
your dad at five years old somehow getting from Berlin
to Duro. Can you just give me the short version
of how the hell that happens?
Speaker 6 (06:37):
German Jews were very, very German. They didn't want to
leave Germany. They felt really proud of being German. They
thought that that was what was happening in the Holocaust
was something that was going to happen to the other Jews,
you know.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Not to them, because they were lighter skinned, and they
were educated, they were wealthy.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
They were like every immigrant. They wanted to release their pasts.
They changed a surname when they came into Germany. They
wanted to have a new identity. They wanted to leave
all the stettle and the Yiddish and although they spoke Yiddish,
they didn't want to speak English at home. They thought
German was better. So they didn't want to live and
they left in the thirty nine after the Crystal Nach,
the moment that they decided to live, it was almost
(07:18):
impossible to live. Already, the only country that stayed open
to Jewish refugees was Bolivia. It was a very brave nation.
I have a song called Bolivia. It's a song that
I wrote to thank you know, the poorest country in
South America giving asylum to one of.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
The richest country in Europe, you know. And we should
not forget that. And obviously and the young cannot and
last conci because that goes back and forth all the time.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
I mean, we we come and we go, and we
receive and we ask for.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
As I look.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Anti from.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
In nineteen fifty one, I think so they entered little
while from scratch. My grandfather built a a short factory.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Like a very Jewish professional Jewish profession.
Speaker 6 (08:27):
He did really good, and at some point he offered
the factory to his two sons, my father and his brother,
and both of them said, I want my own life.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
I want to be a doctor. So that happened again
with me and.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
With him and lad Vermev korason Espera sing Sabermivia.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Okay, So the trauma, the exodus, the fear, the persecution.
Were you growing up with a sense of six million Jewish,
including my own family, were persecuted. How did you understand
that part of your legacy.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
My father is a war child.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
He doesn't trust reality, and he doesn't think that situations
are continuous. He knows that they change, and he knows
that they can change for bad. So he's always been
prepared for that, and he always transmitted that fear and
that you know, that alert to us too. So I
think it takes more than two or three generations to
(09:32):
lose that feeling of you know, the feeling that the
children in Ukrainia are having today that trauma is not
going away easily. I also got my share because I
grew up in a dictatorship. I entered the dictatorship with
nine years and I came.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Out with twenty.
Speaker 6 (09:50):
All my emotional life, my sex life, all my relationship
life was built in a very oppressive system.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
And that's going to take a long time. I had
to write.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
I had to make a record called by just to
take the dictatorship out of my joints because I couldn't dance.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
By Layla while La.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
By Lay, I'm.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
Still fighting that, I'm still Dictatorship is a very It's
inside me and I go everywhere with it.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
And holocaust is also inside me through my father and.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
I read my Starff and s and you.
Speaker 6 (10:40):
In life, if you can celebrate, do celebrate, because celebrating
is a way of acknowledge that you will not always
be able to celebrate.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
So just grasp that little joy that you find.
Speaker 6 (10:53):
Because we come and go from saddness to by lay.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I have a lot of sadness and melancholy my songs too.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
But but if I can celebrate, I think, and I celebrate.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
You know, it's a choice, it's a choice. A man,
Kayla sing pila and la cuela.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
You make this decision to say, my boy, and I'm
going to become an immigrant by your own choice in Spain.
And there were many places that you could choose to live.
What was it about Spain?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
It wasn't a conscious decision.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
I was thirty years old, I wasn't young, and I
had my own flat, my own practice, and I moved
to Spain to share a flat.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
With nine other year wires in.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
Madrid with no money and I think maybe two bathrooms
lightly so.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
More so nice passim.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
Yeah, I'm just playing little cafes for forty people and
not the Nine days later, I met the mother of
my first child, Anna, and of my first son, and
I fell in love with her so well I should
really it wasn't a brain decision.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Actually, stamos vilos, polkist tamos and movie mento.
Speaker 6 (12:22):
But I have to say when I got to Spain,
very quickly I was invited by Joaquin Savina, mervous Spanish musician.
He invited me to perform with him in Spain and
I got to meet through him many other artists that
I admired, and very quickly they started asking me for
compositions and Abilene Victor, Manuel Keetama, Pablo Milanaise Rosario Flores.
(12:51):
At first, my parents were like horrified because I was
throwing a whole life and prosperity and a career outside.
But then I started making a little place for me
in the Spanish music as a writer, and very quickly
they moved to being just sad because I was away.
Love overcame that feeling of I think you ruined your life,
(13:14):
But at some point that they realized that I was.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Really happy and that made them happy too.
Speaker 6 (13:24):
I started making a living of music when I was thirty,
but I started doing good when I was forty already,
and that was the first time I was having a
little success and it came all together.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
You know.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Before that, the first ten years in Spain were really hard.
I didn't sell records. I was a completely failure in
my own selling record history.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Although I was really happy.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
I was writing for other people and I was making
the records I wanted to make.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
That was an important thing. Laplace through my rest plan
to Elviento del.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Bocasus coming up on Latino USA Porte head Drexler's career
as a singer songwriter takes off to the very top.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Stay with us.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Either Lovelazlan.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Welcome back to Latino, USA. And before the break, I
was speaking with Uruwayyan singer songwriter Porthhead Drexler about abandoning
his career as an ear nosen throat doctor and then
making it as a musician in Spain. I wanted to
ask him about the aftermath of winning that Academy Award
(14:56):
in two thousand and five, because Horge became be first
Uruaian to ever win an Oscar and this was the
first time a Spanish language song received.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
An Academy Award.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
You can't get any higher than winning an Oscar and
performing and people falling in love with you as a result,
And then you go into a very dark place. You
end up getting a divorce, and you end up making
an album about your divorce. How do you understand that process,
the falling?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I think it's a natural process.
Speaker 6 (15:31):
That's one thing with prices and with expectations. I mean,
there is no good way out of expectations. If you
do achieve what you expected to achieve, the void that
comes after that. You know, I actually didn't expect to
win that. It was a crazy thing. It was the
first price I got in my life, and it was
the highest after the oscars. I had the choice to
(15:54):
decide whether I wanted to follow the circumstances or to
have agency in my life. Immediately, everybody told me, you
moved to Miami and to la and you know you
have an oscar.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Every door is going to be open.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
You can make your big crossover record, your big Latin
happy crossover record. And I said, okay, but you know
what I have to choose. If I'm going to make
a record in what I am actually feeling, which is sadness,
twelve seconds of darkness the name of the record, A
very dark the darkest record, if I have to follow
(16:29):
my instinct and my truth or if I have to
follow the circumstances. And I said, I'm going to follow
my truth. I mean, it's as that symbol. I got
a divorce. We're already thinking about that for a long time.
But then I fell in love really quickly after the divorce,
(16:49):
and I couldn't cope with that mixture of success and
the happiness and sadness at the same time. Because divorcing
with children, it was the toughest thing that happened in my.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
Life, jos cab Lumbo, the Regresso sing.
Speaker 6 (17:06):
I think it's my most important record actually, and I'm
so proud because after that I realized.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Why am I a songwriter?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
What?
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Why do I write songs for?
Speaker 1 (17:14):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Because you are like a deeply emotional person and you're
connected with all of.
Speaker 6 (17:20):
These and I respect my emotions to more than I
respect the circumstances.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Ok No, sys, So I want to talk about your
(17:51):
evolution as a musician a little bit through your own songs,
and yeah, I'm gonna take you back a little bit.
So I want you to pick a song from your album.
This is Carabe. It's two thousand and eight, okay, three
years after the oscar It's a two hour long live album.
(18:11):
So one song from Caabe that you're like, yeah, this
is this one captures it.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I have the only song that I've co written with
my wife, and it's called Doves Doves bela Dova, which
is a very strange song. It's that's the only song
we wrote together.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
And it's a song try lingual, half in Spanish, a
little bit in Italian and a little bit in English.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
We wrote it together.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
We were in the first years of our relationship and
it's a song I really love that I never got
to air too much.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
You go on a way away time.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
All right, we're gonna move forward to twenty ten. Yeah,
you release a Madla Drama is there and that stands
out for you?
Speaker 6 (19:02):
Yeah, I have two songs that send out Actually after
those wos a very dark record.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
This is a record filled with a.
Speaker 6 (19:09):
In the name ahmar La Trama really open feeling, open
chest feeling.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
It's an homage to Madrid.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
Camino for Madrid and to company.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
I was living order for a long time, but I
fell in love with the city. I fell in love
with this amazing woman. We had this amazing son. And
so there's two songs that one called La tram Listen
Lassi that's dedicated.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
To leonor Signal da Mosquez.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
And there's no the Luca dedicated to my son Luca,
which is when I realized it was going to be
a father and for the second time, and all the
healing that came to my life, not just with having
that second child, that put everything in an order in
(20:08):
your life after a very happy but difficult years, you know,
of transition from one life to another.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
We will be right back, Hey, we're back.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
We're gonna pick up where we left off with what
head Wrexler and talk about his song Plan Maestro, The
master Plan, So planned Maestro. I mean, that's like a
pretty big title, The master Plan. This is on the album.
This is written by your cousin who lives in Venezuela,
(20:55):
who is an astrophysicist. You have a very high performing family.
You talk about having the relationship of humanity close to
you as you write. So you write this song with
your cousin who's in Venezuela when you're in Madrid. How
are you doing it together? And how did this play
(21:15):
into you? Know, you have to have a relationship in
music when you're writing it.
Speaker 6 (21:21):
She's my cousin. She has the same age. I'm only
a few months older than her. So we have this
really strong connection, like an umbilical connection.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
Kria Era del Mesoku Guanda Queesa Slula Visionaria.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
I don't have told this anyone, but we actually operate
like twins with her. We have the same age, We
were best friends where we were children. We shared these
common interests, like we have the same hard disk. You know,
she is a scientist, but she's also a poet, we
always feel this connection. And we started writing songs when
we were fifty five years old. And she's been the
(22:00):
great the biggest influence I had in my in my
music in the last years. When you go to my concert,
the concert is opened by her voice. She speaks for
four minutes talking about the invention of love in the
Mesoproterozoic era.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
One thousand, six.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Hundred years ago, were the first two cells got together.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
It's a love story.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
She wrote this beautiful decimo, which is a very complex
verse form that you have in Mexico in the Sanjarrocho
and the Wapangu. It's a ten verse structure that you
have all over Latin America.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Unbriselos does who's carrying out.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
In Paraham.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
They have the galeron in Venezuela in Peru, Pajaores in Uhy,
Repentistas in Kuba, Pajas in Chile.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
That they use the same verse form everywhere.
Speaker 6 (23:06):
What pang in Mexico come to Panama vers.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So one of the things that you and I are
lucky about, Jorge, is that one that we're still here,
that we're still alive.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
That's a big one.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
That's a big one.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
And you and I are lucky in this one particular way, Jorge,
that you and I still have a little bit of
cred with the younger generations. Yeah, oh, Jo, I mean
you're playing with Dietrees, You're playing with Natalia and so
many others, and I just you know, when you pause
and you think about that, just how do you understand
to process this as we get older and at the
(23:47):
same time that you got some intergenerational cred.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Young people love you too.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
I was taught this by my father actually, when he
was forty he had the Beatles records. It was the
only person in his generation in euro White that would
actually understand that there was a newer world and that
newer world wasn't worse than the older world.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
When when he grew up, and.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
I mean he grew up with jazz music, but he
understood the Beatles and he gave the Beatles to me.
When we got into Bob Marley, he said, can I
hear that again?
Speaker 3 (24:19):
That's really interesting? I mean, who's this guy?
Speaker 6 (24:21):
And it's my music in my generation, but he was
open to my music and he gave me this message.
Older people are still alive. I remember reading a book
about Mario and Treja and asking him this book this
is crazy I was a teenager. It's a book about
a forty year old guy that falls in love. I mean,
that can't be possible. You don't fall in love when
(24:43):
you're forty or fifty. And he said, we have to
have this talk. Yes today, you know love has no age,
beauty has no age, sex has no age, and art
has no age.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
And you can be open to things that are new.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Okay, look oka, look atz Oka, look at Oko.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
I have this world that I started using a few
months ago. That it's called neophobia. Neophobia like the phobia
to the new. It's a generational thing. I think younger
people accept you and listen to you just because you
listen to them.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
That's the secret.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
Because when I hear but Bunny, I tried to understand
what's going on. And I'm not lying when I say
I really admire his work. He's very different from me.
Setangan is his age, which I worked a lot, and
he was one of the other big influences in my music.
Talk my daughter, eleven year old, she comes and shows
(25:47):
me some music.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
I sit down on the floor and I listened very
carefully to her advice. I take it really seriously. It's
like breathing new air for me.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
I want to know what the world is about, just
because I hate being nostalgic. I hate thinking that the
best part of my life has already passed.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
There are great things that I learn right now, and
that you know. My past is beautiful. It's my past.
It's not better than my present.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
Actually, my presence is the only thing that I have,
so it should be I should take it seriously.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
So I love urban music. I listen to urban music
a lot.
Speaker 6 (26:35):
I'm looking forward to working with people that have very
different styles from mine. It's not a record company advice.
It's not a management or a marketing advice.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
I just love being.
Speaker 6 (26:46):
Alive, dmingdim and I love the present. I love dancing
a lot, going out and meeting people and trying to
feel that life is still has a lot of things,
of course, to offer you.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I decantar linamente Luez.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Thank you for offering me this time. It has been
just so much fun.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Thank you, Pimp Didi tim Didi Timo.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
This episode was produced by Patricia Sulvaran. It was edited
by Marta Martinez. It was mixed by Julia Caruso and
Gabriela Bias. Fernando Echavari is our managing editor. The Latino
USA team also includes Roxanna Guire, Jessica Elis, Rebecca Renaldo Junior,
Stephanie LAbau, Andrea Lopez Cruzado, Yorman Marquez, Julieta Martinelli, Monica
(28:03):
Moreles Garcia, JJ Krubin, Adriana Rodriez, Nancy Trujillo, Benile Ramires
and I are co executive producers.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
I'm Your Host Maria Josa.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Latino USA is part of Iheart's Mykeldura podcast network. Executive
producers at iHeart are Leo Gomez and Arlene Santana. Join
us again on our next episode. In the meantime, we'll
see you on all of our social media. And don't forget,
dear listener, Join futuro Plus. It's our new membership program.
(28:36):
You get to listen to everything ad free and you get.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Cool bonus content. What's not to love?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Join futuro Plus and you'll be happy you did. Asta
approximayas Chiao.
Speaker 7 (28:50):
Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heising
Simons Foundation, Unlocking knowledge, opportunity and possibilities. More at hsfoundation
dot org. The Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the
front lines of social change worldwide, and the John D.
(29:11):
And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
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