Mari from Chambao: "Music has once again given me warmth and shelter against cancer"

While touring the country last year and preparing her 25th anniversary album, she received the diagnosis: her breast cancer had reappeared. A new blow, but also a new comeback. "Attitude is everything," she asserts. After a complex surgery and a few months of recovery, La Mari celebrates life today with more than thirty artists, from all styles and generations, who join her in the most iconic songs of her career. The list of voices on 'Chambao 25th Anniversary' is immense: Ricky Martin, Pablo Alborán, Alejandro Sanz, Joan Manuel Serrat, Vanesa Martín, Manuel Carrasco, Estrella Morente, Kase. O... And finally, she feels "deserving" of so much affection. A quarter of a century that La Mari will review in a talk next Thursday, April 30, at the 'Málaga ida y vuelta' cycle organized by the La Malagueta Cultural Center in collaboration with SUR (7:00 PM, free entry until full capacity). On June 19, she will also perform at the Solaris Nerja Festival.

–25 songs to celebrate 25 years. This album is a showcase of the entire journey.

–Of course. I wanted one of those 25 songs to be unreleased, which is 'Es para ti'. I started this project at Christmas 2024. I went to talk to Bob Benozzo in Milan, where he is, because he has been the producer who has made the most albums for Chambao. There I told him the project would be 25 years, 25 songs, 25 collaborations with artists. And he said 'sounds very good but a bit ambitious' (laughs). A little later I called Pedro Pimentel, who often comes on tour and has been a producer for artists like Canijo de Jerez, because we were running out of time. We started the album in March 2025 and finished it at the end of October. Imagine! We talked every day.

–And where do you start a project like this?

–The first thing I did with Bob was to choose the songs, and he asked me how I thought this album should sound now, that flamenco chill. That sound has evolved in Chambao in different ways. Improving those songs and updating them was a challenge. I think it's a beautiful look at how today this invented flamenco chill would be understood, which Dani, Edi, Henrik, and I pulled out of our sleeves. It's like Chambao's surname, and I think it's nice to be remembered like that. But that flamenco chill is already done, I keep moving forward today.

–In this album, there are very diverse artists who, at your call, wanted to be there. Has this response helped you understand your place in the industry, has it made you aware that you are a beloved artist?

–Yes, that's just it. As you get to work, you don't fall into feeling deserving. And when you talk to each of these artists and receive that gratitude, that respect, that generosity, and that affection, you stay like "wow! I deserve it, right?". Yes, deserving has to fit because it's true that throughout my life not feeling deserving is one of the things that have to do with my falls. It's nice to give yourself that recognition and a little bit of affection.

–There are many names. Have you left many out?

–I have left people out, in the end, there are 24 tracks, because one is without collaboration. I stay with the generosity they have contributed and the ease with which they have finalized everything. That Alejandro Sanz, Manuel Carrasco, Rosario, Vanesa Martín, Pablo Alborán, Malú, Camilo, Ricky Martin, the Estopa..., that everyone has found the little gap to get into the studio and take on the song, that's heavenly glory. Without them, without their generosity and their willingness, this wouldn't be possible in this way.

"Without public healthcare, I could neither have afforded it nor know if I would be here telling it"

–One of the words you always repeat is excitement.

–If I didn't have the excitement, what am I doing here? (laughs) Life, fortuitously, put me in a place with people to whom I am super grateful: to Dani, to Edi, to Henrik, to Pedregalejo... I thank life for having been there at that moment. I don't know if people are aware of the gift that each person has made to me by having this beautiful profession.

–Is that attitude towards life what helps you face the blows?

–The attitude is everything, or at least 50% of how your day-to-day goes. Life has all its colors and that's why it's rich. If we only stay in one, we walk lame. One is the one who puts observation, listening, and care in front of all those colors. And learning is the most precious thing that can happen to us. This profession puts me in the world in a way, it makes me have schedules, deal with people, makes me travel and rethink life. Blessed profession!

–You say this album was created between March and October last year. Did it coincide with the time when the disease was detected again?

–It coincided with everything. The tour started in February and ended in December. And my second breast cancer was diagnosed in July, during my annual review. I was operated on in September. The truth is that both the tour and recording this album have kept me in the excitement and the hustle not to be thinking all the time "damn, this again!". Music has again given me that warmth and that shelter to think 'come on, everything is fine, you have to climb this little ladder, step by step', as my oncologist Emilio Alba taught me the first time.

"Deserving has to fit. Throughout my life, not feeling deserving is one of the things that have to do with my falls"

–How has the medical process been this time?

–The good news is that they did not give me chemo. It was a ductal carcinoma, but instead of being infiltrating it was 'in situ'. Being the second operation, it was more complex; the other lasted an hour and a bit and this one lasted five hours and something because they did a mastectomy and put in a prosthesis. Three surgeons operated on me at the Materno. And long live public healthcare! Let's support it more. I've already been here for 21 years and, if it weren't for public healthcare, I could neither have afforded it nor know if I would be here telling it.

–I imagine the frustration when they tell you it has happened again. One wonders why it happens to one again.

–That's one of the things that breast cancer taught me the first time, not to ask myself those kinds of questions. This is a lottery. And on social networks, you realize that there are many more people than we think who have gone through the same thing a second time.

–And what comes next?

–Taking this great album on tour. This year I want to enjoy this exclusive repertoire live. When it ends in December, I would like to consider spending some time making a new album.

–Do you need calm to create?

–Don't think so, there are songs that come from the boiling of a tour. The moment of composition is very mystical. There are days when you are on fire and days when you say "let's do something else today, Mari" (laughs).

–Do you feel that your life is in your songs?

–In some yes, others no. I don't bare myself as much in songs as in books, I would like to get there and I think age will give it to me.