Pancho, as his friends call Francisco Céspedes, arrived at the LISTÍN DIARIO newsroom almost at noon on Thursday and with a disposition that is not common in renowned artists, he spoke with journalists in an open and fluent manner.
The Cuban artist is back in Santo Domingo to sing this Friday at his concert “Ya no es lo misma”, in the Carlos Piantini Room of the Eduardo Brito National Theater, produced by local businessman Billy Hasbún.
The conversation revolved around different topics, and one of them was education, especially due to the misuse that language has been given both in music and in everyday life.
“Now you realize that education is very flawed, all over the world. Before, education was focused on training children so that in the end they decide the government, but if one talks about that they say that I am conspiring, but it has been failed … The world is increasingly ignorant, if you do not have the knowledge you do not have a base, there is no questioning, human beings, unfortunately, are responding to what they are inducing us, be it from the right or the left ”.
He also regretted the changes that the language has undergone, although he does not use it, if he has insisted on understanding it.
In the same way he has done it with the new rhythms that come from the urban genre.
Céspedes said that at first he was very critical of reggaeton, but later he understood that he only had to respect what millions of people consumed in these times, without defining whether it was good or bad music.
In that vein, he referred to the controversy between the Puerto Rican René Pérez (Resident) and the Colombian J. Balvin: a matter between them, but that they understand that each one has his reason and point ”.
+ Johnny Ventura
For his show this Friday at the National Theater, there will be no shortage of songs like "Crazy life", "Swirl", "Ms", "Where is life", "Think of you", "Everything is a mystery", "I crave", "What do i do with you", "I dreamed you April rain" and many more.
It will also include a tribute to Johnny Ventura, whom he admires, and for that moment he invited the family of the late merenguero.
Pancho has thought about singing merengue, but has preferred that this tribute be a surprise.
+ Francisco and his other names
In his latest interviews, the artist has denied being Francisco, singer-songwriter, Cuban, Mexican, heterosexual. Who is Francisco Céspedes, then? He was asked.
His answer: “I have no attachments to names. Francisco is a name that I acquired through my parents. Francisco was the name of my maternal grandfather, who died of sadness ”.
Then he abounds: “They named me with a stigma. They slandered my uncle and my grandfather sat in the doorway, did not eat, nor did he speak to anyone else so that people would see that everything they said about my uncle was a lie, and he died of sadness “.
Under his other name, Fabián, Céspedes also has another story, as his great-grandfather was a Chinese who arrived in America on a slave ship in the 19th century and came to work at the home of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, the father of the country. from Cuba.
“My real last name is Chong, I am not a singer-songwriter because Serrat says that a singer-songwriter is when he only sings your songs and I sing to other authors, I love my country, but I am not from anywhere,” he explains.
From the crazy life of Francisco Céspedes there remains a man who loves love, literature, stories, and spelling. There remains a man who tries to preserve an artistic image, now with a beard painted blue, but above all, there remains a great artist, a composer of beautiful songs that will delight his followers on Friday night.
“I am an alternative old man”, In his visit to Listín Diario, he says, explaining the reason for his striking beard that he dyes himself in his favorite color, blue, “as well as the sky and the sea.”
At 65 he exhibits a very jovial spirit, with an admirable awareness of what he believes, but above all, of how indispensable love is for humanity.
“There has never been a more crazy life than now”, refers to comparing the times we live from the Covid-19 pandemic, with those of the Spanish fever or the bubonic plague.
“My crazy life, when I was young-well- I was crazy. This blue beard It still has to do with this that I’m half crazy. I find many crazy things in literature, I am an inveterate reader, I write stories, I have to read a lot because I am a spelling scholar, “he says, revealing that his favorite reading has been the great authors.
The first months of the pandemic, residing in Mexico, for the interpreter of “Donde va la vida” they were as difficult as any other. Pancho loves freedom and loves to sing, luxuries that could not be given due to confinement. So the depression came, which he immediately fought with an anger mechanism.
“When I get depressed I bring out the other character who gets mad at the depression. During the pandemic I wrote a few songs and deleted them because I was not going to pay tribute to the virus. I also wrote a song for my mother, which I am going to premiere at this concert ”, he reveals at the time that he said he was very lucky to have had the parents he had.
For the composer love More than the greatest force that moves him to write, it is the only force that human beings have and need.
Francisco not only talks about falling in love, although he confesses to being lucky in this kind of love, without wishing to praise himself, he assures that the women he has loved have not been unlucky either.
“I am not a bad person, it is not vanity, but when I have a relationship with a woman it is to have a good time,” says Céspedes, who considers respect his greatest visualization of love.
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