Elsa Y Elmar talks about mental health and the new album “Palacio”

In our series of questions and answers / features Tell Me Más, we ask some of our favorite Latin celebrities to share internal information about their lives and some of the ways they favor their mental health. This month, we spoke with the Colombian star Rising Elsa Y Elmar about the management of professional exhaustion, the safeguarding of his mental health and the way all this had an impact on the process of creating his latest album, “Palacio”.

Elsa Margarita Carvajal is not unrelated to success. Even known as her stage name, Elsa Y Elmar, the singer nominated at the Grammy Award has been making waves on the music scene for more than a decade. But with his latest album “Palacio” which is released on August 30, and about to hit the road for its biggest tour to date, Carvajal is ready to reach a whole new level. To reach this level once meant put many years on the independent circuit and play solo in bars trying to connect to people who had never heard of it. And even if her days of unknown independent artists are behind her, the singer admits that the pressure remains. Carvajal says the pressure can be both good and bad. On the one hand, he can push artists to achieve bigger and better things, reaching the levels previously affected by their idols.

But on the other hand, the constant pressure to push for more and compare themselves to their peers or to those who came before can be harmful from the point of view of mental health. The singer says that she sometimes found herself in a constant working state, reflecting on what she can do more. This led him to take a well necessary break to recharge after his latest album “Ya no somos los mismos”. However, in the two intermediate years, the singer-songwriter learned precious lessons on personal care, understanding when she needs to be “on” and when she needs to take time for herself. From this mentality and two years without labels and asked her new music or what she was going to do next, Carvajal was able to bounce back from her exhaustion with her new “Palacio” record. The album is the first to release on its new label, Elmar PREENTA, and is taking up various challenges that many of us deal with daily. In a recent interview, she spoke with PS to talk about mental health and creative pressures and dive into some of the feelings behind the project.

PS: You are about to play in your biggest place for all time. How do you feel at this point in your career?

Elsa Y Elmar: You know, it’s really interesting because all the chances were against me. I am not of this generation of women in pop like Belenova, Julieta Venegas and Natalia Lafourcade. And I am not an Urbano artist either. I am an artist who, from the first day, the people I would work with say: “I do not know where you are. [your sound]Whether you are indie or alternative. “”

PS: What are the things that could surprise the people of reality to be a professional musician?

Elsa Y Elmar: It is trying physically and mentally and requires a lot of patience. . . I feel like I am still there.

PS: How did you learn to balance the pressure to be creative with the need to deactivate and deliver to personal care?

Elsa Y Elmar: I try to make the most of the periods when I feel the most creative and that I do as many ideas, songs and videos as possible because I know at any time, there will be a period of drought. But I also try to take advantage of this time when I don’t feel as creative, and no stress, confident that creativity will come back.

PS: What were some of the factors that led to your two -year interruption?

Elsa Y Elmar: I was tired of bureaucracy, expectations, to work with large labels, to run after the carrot. I decided that if I was going to hunt a carrot, it would be my carrot.

PS: The album is filled with songs that approach real problems. But perhaps the song that has attracted the most attention so far is “between Las Piernas”, a song celebrating menstruation. What has inspired you to approach a subject which, for some, is always considered taboo?

Elsa Y Elmar: Being honest, the subject did not really cross my mind as worthy of a song, until one day, he strikes me that half of the population of the planet is bleeding once a month. And even today, in 2024, it is a subject that is always taboo, which always gives off people, and we are not supposed to speak … And I just thought that “thousands of love songs were written and that no one wrote on this subject which is so common?”

PS: On another star of the album, you apply an incredible sensitivity to “Mini Heartbreak” to be left in reading with the song “Visto” – a unique digital problem that the singer manages to feel timeless. Why did you think that something as simple as being ignored via the text can be so painful?

Elsa y Elmar: I mean, there are obviously legitimate reasons that people find themselves in reading. . . But what I’m talking about in the song is when you are vulnerable with someone and they let you read, and it seems horrible, not to understand why the other side of the conversation rather than communicating what they feel, eliminates the possibility of communication and leaves you with a mountain of questions and doubt.

PS: Finally, for those who could go through what you have gone through in the past two years – sorrow, pressure to create, be left in reading – can you give them advice on how you have centered?

Elsa y Elmar: the other day, I listened to a little cat and [heard something] It struck me as very beautiful. If a problem has a solution, this is not a problem. And if he has no solution, this is not a problem.

Whether it is his interviews or his work, Carvajal’s vulnerability appears effortlessly. And yet, she also understands that for many of us, vulnerability is a challenge in these modern times. But if she has learned something in the past two years, it is that to make room for love, work or anything else, we must first make room, make room in our “palacio”.

“Palacio” fell on August 30.

Miguel Machado is a journalist with expertise in the intersection of Latin identity and culture. He does everything, from exclusive interviews to Latin music artists to opinion plays on questions relevant to the community, personal tests linked to his Latinidad, and parts and characteristics of thought relating to the Puerto Rico and Porto Rican culture.