The times when Alejandro Sanz would say, “I don’t feel well today” are long gone, although, he says, admitting it was never a bad thing.
Sanz turned that phrase (“Hoy no me siente bien”) into a song with Grupo Frontera, included on his album ¿Y ahora qué? (And now what?), with which he sought to normalize emotions with a more positive approach and a salsa rhythm.
“I think it reflects a situation that everyone has experienced or knows someone who has. It’s how we try to say, ‘Hey, feeling bad isn’t bad.’ I mean, it’s okay to feel bad too and to be able to say it, express it. And you don’t even have to justify it if one day you start dancing and feel bad. The song is a bit like, ‘Look, don’t explain yourself to anyone, and you don’t have to,'” he says in an interview from Miami.
The topic of mental health, Sanz recalls, wasn’t addressed so openly in previous generations; That’s why he decided to bring it closer to his fans through music.
“My mother had a very quick solution for my mental health problem—laughs—but, well, our parents also raised us with the tools they had. We can’t blame them because they belong to a generation where this wasn’t talked about.
“I don’t know how many psychiatrists or psychologists there were in Spain or Mexico at that time, but until things got really bad, they would just admit you to a place and that was it. But having constant therapy, as if it were an exercise, like that, no,” he says.
His children, shares the “Mi Persona Favorita” singer, have access to much more information and are more open about the topic.
“We’ve talked about a lot of things; I think they’re also more prepared than we were when we were their age, and they’re more open when it comes to talking. The other day my son, who is right next door, told me that he had a place he loved to go and cry, that it was a very beautiful place.”
