4 T e Travel Guide Granada


In this Andalucian city, fl amenco is an art form as well as a way of life — not just for traditional dancers and singers but also for hip-hop stars, classical guitar legends and street artists. Words: Daniel Stables. Images: David Charbit


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offi cial shop, selling stickers, badges and prints bearing his designs. Lured by the promise of air conditioning, I step inside and meet tattooist and street artist Paco Hidalgo, a tall man with dreadlocks and a thick beard, who tells me the government is clamping down on graffi ti. “T e last six months, they’ve had a


zero-tolerance policy,” he says. “But the art is a gift we give to the city — the people love it.” I can believe him — the streets of the Realejo are brightened up no end by Raúl’s murals. And a punky attitude is part of the neighbourhood’s modern character. T at much is clear not just from the street art, but from the name of a small square down the road from the tattoo studio: Placeta Joe Strummer, named for the legendary frontman of T e Clash, who found in Granada a spiritual home. One face that I see repeatedly


among the painted streets of the Realejo, stencilled onto walls and lampposts, is that of Federico García Lorca, often described as Granada’s most famous son. A famous left-wing fi gure, he was assassinated by fascist forces in 1936, at the age of 38, and ever since he has been a symbol of Andalucian resistance against oppressive nationalism. He was a particular champion of Granada’s Romani communities and in 1922, helped stage a fl amenco festival in the grounds of the Alhambra, which has been credited with popularising the art form. More than anything, Lorca espoused the creative power and meaning of duende, describing it as “a mysterious power that everyone feels, and no philosopher can explain.”


Granada’s glorious skyline I


t’s almost sunset, and the hilltop cave quarter of Sacromonte is just beginning to stir. T e summer heat, which


has been smothering Granada all day like a weighted blanket, has begun to lift; the heady scent of wisteria hangs on the breeze, and the shaded plazas echo with the meowing of cats and the shouts of playing children. As I walk up the steep cobbled streets, another sound fi lters in — the plucking of a classical guitar, coming from the open door of a hillside home. “Sacromonte has a magic of its


own,” says guitarist Pepe Romero when I meet him inside. “It was here in the mountains that the Romani people settled. T en the Muslims and Jews, exiled by the Christians, took refuge here in the 16th century. Sacromonte was one of the hotspots where fl amenco was born, against this backdrop of oppression. Flamenco began as a lament.” Today, Pepe — a spry, charismatic


80-year-old — is one of the world’s most famous classical guitarists. Although he’s from Málaga, his musical journey owes its origins to Granada, after he was captivated by hearing his father playing Francisco Tárrega’s famous guitar piece, Recuerdos de la Alhambra. As we speak, the Alhambra itself — Granada’s famed Moorish- Christian palace, an architectural masterpiece — sits framed beyond Pepe’s balcony, against a shifting canvas of burnt ochre, rose gold and ferrous red in the quickening sunset. Despite his classical prestige,


Pepe’s earliest albums in the late 1950s and early 1960s were fl amenco records. “I’ve always been in love with fl amenco,” he says. “Its spirit is what we call duende: something like divine inspiration, but not religious — the divinity of all humanity. When you’re in touch with that, you lose fear. Duende takes fear away.”


At Pepe’s urging, I climb further


up the hill to see duende in action at Cueva de la Rocío, a fl amenco venue in a complex of rock-cut caves. I’m ushered into a tunnel-like room with a barrel ceiling that’s dimly lit by purple light, its rough walls hung with brass cooking pots and family photos. A drummer, singer and guitarist occupy the stage at the end, delivering impassioned songs interspersed with shouts of “Ay!” — the exclamation known as the quejío, the cry of lament. T rough it all, a female dancer


in a polka-dot dress improvises a captivating dance, her fi ngers either clicking rhythmically or clenched in defi ant fi sts, her heels sending up a fi recracker chorus of percussive taps from the polished fl oor. T e spirit of fl amenco infuses


the artistic life and collective imagination of all of Granada. T e labyrinthine alleyways of the Albaicín, the city’s medieval Moorish quarter, house darkly atmospheric clubs like Eshavira, where instrumentalists and singers improvise new fusions of fl amenco and jazz in real time, while fl amenco-infl ected rock bands like Los Planetas have helped bestow on Granada the crown of indie capital of Spain. Flamenco’s hold on Granada transcends even the world of music, though, and can be found in some of the most unexpected places.


The New Flamenco In Realejo, a gritty, centuries-old district south of Sacromonte that was once home to Granada’s Jewish community, a striking mural shows a dark-haired woman with hooped earrings. Her forehead is marked with a bindi — a reference to the origins of the Romani in northern India. La fuerza esta en las raices, reads calligraphic writing next to her. T e strength is in the roots.


T e mural, like the many others


that brighten the elegantly fading buildings in Realejo, is the work of Raúl Ruiz, aka El Niño de las Pinturas (‘T e Boy of the Paintings’) — Granada’s most celebrated street artist. I meet Raúl around the corner from the mural in his studio, where every surface is covered in fl ecks of paint — from the boombox pumping out house tunes, to his hand, which he extends to me in a warm greeting. “Flamenco and street art share a


lot spiritually,” he says between puff s on a roll-up cigarette. “Even though graffi ti came from street culture in the US, there’s a lot in common between hip-hop and fl amenco. Both have singing, and are very rhythmic — hip-hop has beats, while fl amenco…” He taps his feet, snaps his fi ngers, and emulates percussive fl amenco guitar by rapping his hands against his knees. “But the main thing is a shared spirit. Both are an artistic fi ght. Breakdancing in the Bronx and the Romanis dancing in Sacromonte — it’s not so diff erent.” Raúl leafs through a photobook of


his work, which includes a leonine portrait of legendary gitano singer Camarón de la Isla, and a serene image of virtuoso guitarist Paco de Lucía, whose fusions of fl amenco, classical and jazz made him a leading fi gure in the so-called nuevo fl amenco (new fl amenco) movement. Most of the images Raúl shows me, he says, no longer exist — removed by the authorities, despite often being commissioned by the owners of the buildings. I decide to go out and see some more of Raúl’s current crop of murals while I’ve still got the chance. I walk around the Realejo, ticking


off Raúl’s pieces as I see them: vibrant paintings of guitarists, violinists, crowds clapping along to fl amenco, and children playing in the street. I soon stumble across Mítica, a tattoo studio that also serves as Raúl’s


Lorca’s spirit is upheld by many of


Granada’s young rap stars, who have made the city an epicentre for a new genre of music that fuses hip-hop and fl amenco. Breakout stars include La Zowi and Dellafuente. I meet two others, the duo Pepe y Vizio (aka Pepe Sánchez-Vera Serrano and Vicente Perez Carmona), in the Jardines del Triunfo, a leafy park in central Granada. T ey’re young, with buzz cuts and beards, in baggy white T-shirts, gold chains and colourful shorts. “Lorca infl uences all of us artists in Granada,” says Pepe, “partly because the fl amenco singers, like Enrique Morente, sang his words.” It’s refreshing to hear contemporary


urban artists unselfconsciously citing the infl uence of their country’s long- dead and beloved poet — it’s more diffi cult to imagine British rappers or graffi ti artists extolling the virtues of, say, William Wordsworth. But Lorca, as the embodiment of the fl amenco spirit, is diff erent — a voice for the voiceless, just like the rappers who Vicente would listen to growing up. When he met Pepe, a fl amenco guitarist, they saw the ways in which their two styles could fuse. “T e sounds complement each


other, but so do their origins,” Vicente says. “Working classes, poverty, struggle — fl amenco and hip-hop are from diff erent countries, but their sentiments are the same.” T ey’re not the only ones in Granada merging the two genres, and Vicente says that the profusion of fl amenco through all aspects of city life is partly responsible. ”T e infl uence of fl amenco is everywhere in Granada,” he says. “Music, painting, poetry, cinema — everywhere.”


Oranges everywhere


View of the Alhambra, from El Albaicín


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