By Odeisel

Many entertainers attach themselves to charities. It’s good for both prestige and public relations. But when it takes you out of your comfort zone or to places around the world that aren’t Paris or London or Tokyo, but Croatia or the hoods of Sri Lanka, how many of these entertainers would still be down? Maya Azucena would. The Brooklyn indie artist has rubbed elbows with Hip-Hoppers and heads of state, using music as her engine for activism. With a new project, Cry Love in stores, coming three years after her last record, Maya has a lot to discuss with The Planet. Here’s part 1

Maya Azucena Part 1

Planet Ill: Three years is a long time and your life goes through different changes. What was the difference between your mentality when you started this album and when you finished?

Maya Azucena: I consider myself to constantly be evolving, so in that sense, I would say it’s pretty impossible for me to be in the exact same space from where I started and where I ended with the project. The maturity or the evolution of myself as an artist and my deeper understanding of who I am and what I’m trying to say sort of gives me perspective. By the time this project came out, I was 100% confident that it was saying what I wanted it to say.

Where I began and where I ended, it definitely allowed me the opportunity to shake off the stuff that was kinda weak. In retrospect, you look at certain choices you made and you’re like, “Why didn’t I cut that? Why didn’t I let that one go?” In this case, I was able to edit myself because I was able to be objective more. But this is also the project that I had been wanting to make from the beginning. I never felt that  I had the resources to do.

So what shifted for me over the course of time was that I kept saying, “Yo, I need a budget for this.” I hear this record in my mind and I need a budget. And a budget wasn’t appearing. And I started to really think about the resources that I had earned through paying dues and the monetary value of that. The resources in talent, and people around me that had my back is worth more than the budget that I could have gotten. And I was like, “Yo I have straight up musical fam that are the best in the nation. Down for me.”

The horn arrangements [on Cry Love] were done by Maurice Brown, who did Aretha Franklin, the horn arrangements on her last CD. He did the last two albums for John Legend. My keyboard player, Chris Rob, had  played with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Elton John. All these people are my people! So I kinda had to get over this traditional idea that I needed a company to get behind me in order to manifest it. Instead I had to recognize that the people who are around me are the real deal and they are my resources. My guitarist Christian Ver Halen, for example, came on as my Co-Executive Producer. We earned that position with each other. So think that something that definitely came to recognize and stopped feeling like this waiting for someone to come in and make it all better.

Planet Ill: You’re a touring artist who does a lot of shows and you’re always on the road or contributing to some cause. How did you manage to maintain cohesion between all of that road time and having three years on an album?

Maya Azucena: I’m constantly putting stuff out. But it’s not necessarily on my own album. There’s always something new that i put my hand on that represents me as a brand, and as a voice and as an artist.  If you want to talk about things that I put out, that were in between that that were on none of my records… starting with collabing with Stephen Marley and that collaboration and that CD won a Grammy. I’m on iNi Kamoze’s last CD 51/50Rule and the single “Rapunzel”was getting a lot of spins last year on Sirius Radio. Immortal Technique, I’m on his project. Cormega, his new CD is coming out, and we did a single for Haiti that features Redman, General Steele, and sticman.

The thing that is important is that my output was still there[during those three years]. You start to develop relationships with different people’s audiences by collaborating. I think I’ve mentioned only half the collabs that I’ve done between records. When I tour, I travel and I make a living in a very… there’s not one way to do it. So it’s sort of like all the patches on a quilt. They all add up to the blanket.

When I go to Croatia for example, I work with a rock star out there. He’s like Bruce Springsteen.  His audience now requests me and I come out as the surprise guest in the middle of the concert and I do these duets with him. I’ve played in front of literally 100,000 people at once for New Year’s, a couple years ago. I played in front of 50,000 people with him. Last month we did a show in front of 12,000 people on the coast of Croatia. Now his audience is  my audience and they’re asking me when is the CD coming out.

I’ve managed to stay relevant and active even without my own full project.

Planet Ill: How do YOU stay focused on your project when you’re touring and involved in all of these different places? How do you keep your mind on your album?

Maya Azucena: I’m looking at it as part of a strategy; I’m not just doing it just to do it. SO there’s a survival element of going out there getting every gig you can to eat. But it’s also very conscious. I’m a part of these decisions. I’m aware that they all drive me toward my ultimate goal. When it came to completing this record, we gave ourselves a deadline. We booked a concert in June, like an advanced release party; a soft release. June 24^th at the Highline Ballroom and we straight were like, we’re not going to punk ourselves and show up at that release party without a CD!

So because we made ourselves a deadline, we doubled up and just went bananas trying to get everything complete. I had all the elements waiting around me, we just needed to buckle in and finish the last couple overdubs done, get those last horn lines, final crossing the T’s dotting the I’s to put it on schedule. Once you give yourself a schedule, it’s like anything else that gets done. In terms of my mind, I’m not scattered. There is a difference.

Planet Ill: You work with a wide variety of artists that all seem to have some sort of social relevance or social understanding. Is that a conscious thing?

Maya Azucena: For me, philosophically, music is a tool for activism. The privilege of being able to get up in front of people and have a platform, for me, I believe my calling is to do that in a way that serves the community around me. For years I’ve done any benefit, every cause related event I possibly could and it’s ended up actually this thing where I’m branded now, where people are like Maya is the one to go to if you have an event.

The funny thing about the Cormega collaboration is that Steele and I have been seeing each other for years. Every time we see each other we’re like, “Yo, we gotta do a joint together!”  Sticman and I worked together with A-Alikes. It was like ok, so we’re all kind of aware of each other. Cormega did NOT know me. He was asking around like I want a singer that’s really seriously down for the cause, not someone that’s trying to get put on. And he was referred to me by more than two people. They were like, “Oh, Maya Azucena. You don’t know Maya Azucena?” And he’s the one that stepped to me, not Steele, not stic. Cormega heard about me as a girl that does the music for the real reason. And he wanted that energy on the project. It seems that certain energy is coming back to me instead of just me projecting it.

Planet Ill: As someone who travels the world, what changes from country to country?

Maya Azucena: Cities have a personality. Cultures have a personality. And audiences have different ways of responding to something when they appreciate it. One thing as an artist is to not judge an audience before you get on a stage. And not assume that if they don’t respond exactly the way they do in Brooklyn, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t feeling you o something like that. The audiences have their different styles of enjoying and being in to something. Because I accept that and I’m open-minded with my audience, I have also found not just how they differ but how all audiences are the same, in that they all respond to the same parts of my songs, they react with an emotional connection to me even when they don’t speak English.

This kind of stuff has just revealed to me that the universal language is music. As much as I have been able to experience and celebrate the differences from playing to an audience in Sri Lanka, to playing in front of an audience in China, they are very different. But I’ve also found them to be very human and the same and feeling a connection with me. And it’s really deep to me as being some independent Brooklyn chick out there.

I did a show out in Honduras for the US Ambassador and the President of Honduras and a thousand dignitaries from Honduras. They were giving me love… like they been following me for years. It’s just really cool.

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