By now, C. Tangana has set himself apart as an insouciant rapper who traffics in slick beats and unexpected visuals (we still haven’t forgotten those hairless cats from his 2017 album Idolo). He’s also never afraid to tackle relationship woes, and he dives headfirst into some serious emotional baggage on his latest track “Bien Duro,” which openly lays out a twisted love affair.
“Many of my songs talk about this romantic love that ends up becoming toxic,” he told Remezcla via email. “It’s a constant subject of Spanish culture, and whether I like it or not, I have it inside of me.”
“Bien Duro,” C. Tangana explains, follows someone trying to have a good time, despite dealing with a fractured relationship. “It’s like a lie that you tell yourself — that you’re good even though it’s really hard, and you need strong emotions to hide what’s actually bothering you,” he said. That need to drown your sorrows is at the center of the track’s rowdy, NSFW video, which premieres today exclusively on Remezcla.
C. Tangana plays a reckless lothario doing the most to seem unfazed by anything: he cheats and snorts and drinks and parties, with no regard for his devastated girlfriend, who winds up exacting revenge on him — and it all happens to the tune of the song’s clave-inflected dembow riddim, which comes courtesy of producer DVLP.
Roger Gonzalez directed the video in Barcelona’s La Mina and La Razz, capturing all of the couple’s wild antics and debaucherous moments, even though they eventually reach some sort of reconciliation. One of the female leads is played by actress Berta Vázquez, who stars on the Netflix series Vis a Vis.
C. Tangana said he and Gonzalez were inspired by Spanish filmmaker Bigas Luna, as well as “cinema Kinki” or “quinqui,” a genre that he explains became famous during the 80s in Spain. Typically, these films covered the misdeeds of street kids or young delinquents, often including unflinching portrayals of drugs or sex.
“The films we had in mind were Jamón Jamón, Huevos de Oro, Deprisa Deprisa, and Estanquera de Vallecas,” he said. “The idea was also to play with the prototype of Iberian macho that Spanish cinema has created.”
The video also marks the first time C. Tangana has really had to flex his drama chops and carry a full narrative on camera. “It is the first video in which I have to perform the way an actor would; it is something very new for me. A few years ago, I would not have dared to do this — I thought that acting was something inferior to writing or directing,” he said. “A friend of mine taught me that all artists are more or less creators; we are always acting. I learned this well, and now, I want to be an actor too.”
Puchito is pretty convincing as the most terrible boyfriend ever in this one, so we’re actually kind of excited to see what the acting looks like in future videos.
Watch our premiere below.