Reflections on Pa'lante

• Tour starts next week! Limited tickets are available, see you out there <3

Dearest Reader,

Here in Chicago it’s Puerto Rican fest weekend, the streets are filled with jeeps waving huge PR flags and hot people of all sorts blaring Reggaeton and overall being cool and hyped. I thought it was a good time to revisit a little song that changed my life.

A strange and sincere 3 part epic called Pa’lante that I recorded 10 years ago.

I had big dreams, I wanted to somehow encapsulate Puerto Rican and Nuyorican history into song form. Distilling the beauty, pain, struggle, resistance and power down into verses anyone could relate to, all to lead into a battle cry of a word many had never heard before.

In my particular world of Folk music, I had not heard a Puerto Rican story told. A blind spot I wanted to fill in with vivid imagery and the catharsis of a guttural scream.

I was at a crossroads in my life, tying up the touring off my first record with a label entitled Small Town Heroes. It was considered a success to everyone but me.

I was unhappy with the image of myself that was being sold and the genre I was being sold in. I was coming from a punk scene in the deep south, where genres blended and everything was political. Suddenly in the land of marketing I was folded up into a neat category I did not feel welcomed in. Who I am and everything I love got lost.

Feeling white washed and uncomfortable at my own shows, I wanted to explicitly state who I was and the lineage I came from. It was time to record something new, something ambitious, and it would mean I would have to grow artistically. I would have to push myself and find the right mentor to guide me in the process.

But first I had to make some mistakes. I went against my instincts and agreed to a recording session that was an utter failure. Over a week of time spent at a studio recording versions of this album that would never see the light of day. I am so fucking grateful my former label ATO did not completely freak out, and was supportive in my far out vision.

The fates brought me to the guidance of Paul Butler. His work with Michael Kiwanuka and his band the Bees back in his hometown of Isle of Wight was psychedelic and expansive. We met at a garage studio in Venice Beach and spent two days demoing together. It was my first experience with a producer, and I knew Paul could help me reach my potential. We planned to camp out with a small band at Panoramic House, a studio/rental house with floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the Pacific Ocean.

My first demo of Pa’lante is dated August 29th 2015, I can still see the lonely Nashville living room I recorded it in when I listen. The song had taken at least a year to even get to that first demo. I started with the bridge, and had different versions of something I’d been working on called “Afraid to Die.” I was artistically frustrated and had no idea where I was going. There was so much I wanted to say but didn’t have the words for yet, I wanted to reach out to the world and feel a hand welcome me. I longed to be connected to something bigger than myself.

I started taking inspiration trips back home to New York and visited my father. I went to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, I read about Julia De Burgos and poems by Pedro Pietri, I listened to the Ghetto Brothers, finally I saw footage online of The Young Lords Party. My mind was blown, I had never known this radical history of my people. Luckily I caught an exhibit up about The Young Lords at the Bronx Museum. There I bought a collection of their revolutionary writings and the title blazed into my vision.

So in April 2016 Paul and I gathered the band, drummer Greg Rogove, bassist Caitlin Gray, and guitarist Jordan Hyde along with engineer Jon Mcmullen. We piled into Panoramic studios and began working on the bulk of the album, it was like summer camp. After a week it came time to record the big question mark in all of our minds. Pa’lante.

We tried our hand at it but each time I crumbled. I felt trapped inside myself, stunted in so many ways. Insecurity is a prison and I wanted so badly to break out. I could hear the sound I wanted to make with my voice and the story I wanted to tell that demanded a break through. I was scared and I could not let this song down, it meant too much to me.

One afternoon after several brutal tries, Paul encouraged me to take a breather and walk down on Stinson Beach. So Caitlin and I stepped out into the blinding sunshine of the outside world.

I was a mess, crying in the car the whole journey down the steep hill towards the town below leading to shore. When we parked, I remembered some advice a spiritual friend gave me in New Orleans. It was suddenly so simple, I needed to make an offering to the Ocean and the Ancestors.

After a visit to the grocery store, I stood on the sand with the wind whipping through my hair. I clutched a bowling ball sized watermelon in my arms and stepped cautiously into the waves. The whole time I did as was recommended to me, I spoke to the Ancestors and asked for their blessings.

I spoke my intention of making a song I believed was gifted to me from them. It was all becoming clear finally, the vision of this wild album, a concept album about a Puerto Rican girl who thought she hated where she came from, but now she could finally see.

I came back soaked from my time in the water and ready to sing. It happened fast, and when we listened back in the control room I was shaking and Paul was in tears. I was released.

Even in my wildest dreams I couldn’t imagine the places and experiences this song has led me to. I couldn’t imagine the type of world we’d live in 10 years later. I need this song more than ever.

I am so grateful I have it to sing when I am low spirited. I’m grateful to each of you who has welcomed it into your hearts. I am not the same scared person I was then, despite the world feeling more dangerous to me. But I am still following the call and hoping to get closer and closer to the freedom and communion only music allows.

Below is two versions of Pa’lante, the demo available for paying subscribers. You will notice a lot of changes, but the magic of discovery was captured. I share this with you in the hopes that you will not give up on your own wild vision. Can’t wait to sing it with you on the road, see you out there.

WEPA , PALANTE &

don’t take any shit !!!!!!!!

xo alynda mariposa segarra xo