CAMAGÜEY.- Annalie López wages an authentic struggle to flow in music with the runaway character that is accentuated among young Cuban singer-songwriters. If she were an athlete, she would practice pole vaulting, and right now we would see her on the bar, suspended by the impulse of her prodigious voice, without the possibility of falling despite the effect of gravity of everyday life and the fences of cultural fashion.

Anyone can see the action image with the pole related to her move from Guantánamo to Havana, due to the ballast of "geographical fatalism." Unfortunately, she passes. She also has to recognize her gymnastic ability to reach the right speed in a resistance and freedom race.

Owner of the contemporary song section in the Cuerda Viva contest ─for the second consecutive year─, the singer-songwriter previously nominated for the Lucas Award for the video clip Azucena draws a universe between guitar chords and the word played with sincerity, in the deep registers for every truth of the human.

Annalie visited Camagüey a few months ago, invited to the Canto adentro trova day of the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS). The same girl involved in a project to clean up the Guaso river, in her homeland, came to share and learn with humility .

At Casa Madiba she offered her first concert together with Yordan Romero from Santa Clara. As evening fell, she turned on the lights in the space, with her metaphors for Dinner, where she promises to "love with the music of the sea"; and we confirm, as she says in another song, that when she opens her throat her soul dances.

Another night, at the Alejo Carpentier Gallery, she would invite fellow countryman Pedro Sánchez to sing Hermandad, the poem by Regino Boti that she did a cappella at Casa Madiba, to remind us that "there is a sensitive soul in everything."

Adiós soledad, Sin clave no hay rumba (the song dedicated to my great-grandmother), Take it out and Azucena, among other songs, we enjoyed then, as we now appreciate her return to the city through this dialogue with Adelante.

─From the Canto adentro festival, what do you take and what do you leave based on your work?

─A reunion with friends that I had not seen for some time. New friends. New experiences. A very nice exchange and my first time in Canto adentro.

─Those who defend the song of authors are increasingly rare avis. On the commercial side they are at a disadvantage, and on the other, they are less due to migration. What makes you persist with your poetry?

─I am a woman of Faith and my great commitment is not to stop doing. Everything is difficult and at the same time I feel that I have to insist a lot because I believe in what I do.

─You won the Cuerda Viva Award for the second time, this time with the song Victoria. Sometimes the categories tend to pigeonhole. What do you understand by contemporary song? In which rope do you prefer to be recognized?

─I understand that music moves from the transformation of social policies, for example, soul, jazz, blues, classical, reggaeton, reggae, trova. It is a still new phenomenon and with a lot to keep on. Recognition is not always there, but when it comes it is welcome. Yes, I would like to be nominated in other categories. I also confess that Cuerda Viva is one of the fairest projects in Cuba today.

─You have been in your career since 2015. You have already matured songs and you have enough for a record. What does your first record production depend on?

- I'm on it. I was recently awarded the AHS Ignacio Villa Scholarship. It consists of the recording of a phonogram with the Musical Recordings and Editions Company, EGREM. If not, I would be inventing how to do it.

─There is a diverse panorama in the current Cuban song map. It has the colors according to the geographies, but it has more. Of your contemporaries, and others, who do you listen to? Who do you follow?

─I listen to my father Aldo López. They are in my player Audis Vargas, Jorge Barrett, Josué Oliva. I really listen to everything that is good to my ear, from Guantánamo to Pinar del Río. I can say the same about foreign music: Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Gregory Porter, Shakira, Jorge Drexler, Joaquín Sabina, Juan Luis Guerra and many others, there is always new music.

─From Guantánamo you have settled in Havana. What real space does the capital offer you?

─Havana does not offer me a real space, no, but I go out looking for it and I hope to find it soon. I have friends and institutions like the AHS that give me support.

─At the same time, in the networks, we have seen your display with drawings. Since when did you discover this other talent? Define for me the convergence of colors in you, both musical and plastic arts?

─I have been painting for a long time. At that time I was 10 or 11 years old. I did tests, I had drawing teachers, in a particular way. I sing since I was younger. I remember that I was 5 years old and I liked listening to myself. I make songs thanks to my dad who told me one day: "Ana, get ready for the songs." I remember that I was about 12 years old when I asked him: Daddy, and are the songs made up or is there a song factory?”… He told me both and that's how it all began.

─In your projection and also in the content of your songs, you are sensual and you defend women without stereotypes. Do you fit into any current of gender approach, feminism or how do you assume it?

─I consider that I am very spontaneous and chauvinist on some occasions, I do like to be sensual, it is something that goes hand in hand. What I am always going to be on the side of truth, balance, whatever the genre.

Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez