As in his last video clip, in which he dances provocatively in the cathedral of Toledo, Antón Álvarez made evident his fondness for controversy and irreverence from the day he chose to propel his solo musical career an alias with the printed conflict in the last name, C. Tangana.
This Madrilenian graduated in Philosophy, and who began his career in 2006 as part of the hip hop collective Agorazein, first chose the pseudonym of Crema to break through in the field of "freestyle".
After five years under that identity and the premise of beginning to diversify his music, inspired in part by the ideas of artists such as the Canadian Drake, he would reappear as C. Tangana with a self-titled album that garnered both praise and criticism.
"I kept the C. for Crema and Tangana for the idea of conflict, of a disorderly fight. That album explained that idea very well, because a year arose in which I was left without a vacation in Madrid, in which I wanted to do things in music, but in which I saw that I could not grow", he told Efe.
His was one of the "beefs" (dispute, in the world of rap) most famous nationally, the one he maintained with the duo Los Chikos del Maíz regarding his change of style and his affiliation to a fashion company.
"Sometimes polemics pay off. Something bad personally can turn out to be something good professionally: a bad day in life is a good day to write"commented on that first great controversy that, indeed, contributed more to his "mediatization".
It would not be long before his musical turn led him to the path of the urban Latino with "Bad woman", his first big hit, number 1 on Spotify’s world chart of viral hits and, shortly after, to reveal the name of his album "Idol" through huge posters that covered entire facades and shamelessly emulated the egotism of music giants.
"I realized that I was building a figure, patterns of excesses, exaltation of power, individualism, ambition in a very competitive context …", He explained to Efe in 2017 after its launch, carried out by the way exclusively in digital format in a bid to the traditional uses of large industry.
It had already become a controversial name, so much for the female asses exhibited in the video clip of "Bad woman" as by headlines like "I am neither a macho nor a feminist; I am transsexual", an outburst in the middle of an interview that he has always denied.
"Being directly accused of being a chauvinist is like asking if you are a Nazi, a murderer or a pedophile. It means that you think the woman is inferior to you. It’s an aberration", he would defend himself, which did not prevent the 2019 Bilbao festivities from canceling his performance due to his alleged macho lyrics and opening a debate that divided society.
Álvarez, who has always defended that artists should not be "the owners of morality" and that all speeches have to be questioned, he replied in networks that "censoring and banning is not the way to educate".
In between, during an appearance at Primavera Sound, he had not bit his tongue when going out to defend rapper Valtonyc, who was facing charges of insults to the Crown: "The king is me, the king is an asshole, the king’s mother eats my balls, the one they now call queen was a TV presenter, and that’s what it still is for me, and that they put me in too the jail".
It was difficult to know what was true or imposed in his speech, including what affected his personal life and how he transferred it to his music, if consciously or to make profitable an excessive attention to each of his movements, especially those that had to do with his ex-partner, Rosalía.
"The music that moves me is the one that talks about me, but if I didn’t take it as a joke, I couldn’t do it", recognized on one occasion the artist who achieved enormous success with the recent song "You stopped loving me", for many dedicated to the Catalan; not in vain an actress was hired for the video clip who remembered her physiognomy.
In an interview with Rockdelux magazine, he denied it, but in his response there were also many who understood that he missed Rosalía: "The obsession with her right now is so great, the debate between the pink sauce with the presence it has, the impact it has had and all that … I mean, quoting Rosalía right now is extremely boring. It’s like, I don’t know, I like coke, so good. She was cool four years ago when no one knew her. There, yes".
How much does it cause "per se" And how much scandal is the result of a twisted interpretation of the one who receives it? Many of his most recent demonstrations have had to submit to that question, such as when he was accused of classism by the video of "Easy", in which he spills a bottle of champagne to the bewilderment of a cleaner.
Also when this summer he posed (supposedly spontaneously) to promote his song "I already" on the deck of one of these boats surrounded by women in provocative attitudes, many recognized empowered figures such as actress Ester Exposito or actress Hiba Abouk. He was accused of surrounding himself with a "harem".
The last episode of this string of "thongs" has led the dean of the cathedral of Toledo to resign after allowing him to record his video clip "Atheist", who snubbed a sector of the population for his dances with Nathy Peluso, which are followed with expectation by several religious, and for a moment in which he pulls the artist’s hair, a gesture that, according to both have defended in networks, On the other hand, it reproduces the iconography exhibited in many Catholic churches.
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