Carmen DeLeon
By: Brenna DeBlasio
Having moved from Venezuela to Florida to Spain to L.A., 19-year-old Carmen DeLeon has already experienced a lot of life, and is ready to share her experiences with the world through her music.
The Capital Records and Universal Music Latin Entertainment artist first made a name for herself as a contestant on Spain’s “The Voice,” and has since released her first single, “Volverás” with an album release to look forward to in the near future.
“Volverás” tells the story of ending a toxic relationship and coming out of it with more love for yourself. DeLeon worked on the Spanish Reggaeton song with Grammy-nominated producer, Tainy.
During an invite-only Zoom press conference hosted by 1824, DeLeon explained her experience working with, “the most-humble angel fallen from the sky,” as “a dream come true…I’m really grateful to have worked with [Tainy] and I hopefully will make more songs with him [in the future].”
For now, the artist continues to work on her debut album where she excitedly shared what fans can look forward to hearing.
“Happiness and love and fun and bilingual stuff,” she said. “I just want to bring happiness in this world cause there’s a lack of it, hard.”
The artist plans to bring more English lyrics into her original work, explaining she loves the writing process and collaborating with her writing team.
“When I’m writing in English it’s a little harder for me obviously because it’s not my main language, but I have people next to me that can help me. I just tell them my ideas in Spanish because mostly when I’m doing a bilingual song, it’s [with] somebody that speaks Spanish but is super fluent in English so, I’m like, ‘Okay! This is the story I want to write about, how can we do it?’” She added, “I love how lyrically in English, songs sound more emotional than Spanish.”
No matter what type of story she chooses to express in a song, whether it be upbeat reggaeton like “Volverás” or a more serious ballad, she hopes her music moves listeners to dance. DeLeon believes strongly that dance is a huge part of the creative process.
She explained, “whenever I do a song, I want it to be a dancing song, I want it to move.” The artist even dances while recording her songs in the studio.
“That energy that you’re bringing with that movement; it brings that energy into the song and the people that are listening to you can hear that.”
DeLeon’s passion for dance came from her mother. As for her passion for performance, that only came after her father signed her up and forced her to audition for “The Voice.”
“My family is my everything. Like my absolute everything,” DeLeon explained, admitting that her dad’s push is what she needed to discover her passion for singing.
“It was at that point when I knew that I wanted to do music, that I wanted to make my own and have people hear my story, and I think I have a lot of story to tell,” DeLeon said.
Even at 19, DeLeon has already faced difficult times throughout her life, noting her repeated struggles to fit in having moved around so often. “So obviously the cultures have been very like wow! Cause Mexican, Spanish, American; you know it’s all very different. It’s amazing, but it’s different, and people are very different, and I had to, you know, like ‘fit’ in to all of the groups and it’s been very hard.”
This difficulty, however did not compare to DeLeon’s severe stomach injury that almost took her life three years ago.
“I was hospitalized for three months and I was on the border of death and that’s when I realized that life is not guaranteed,” she explained. “When you’re as close to a situation like that of having to say goodbye to your parents because you don’t know what’s gonna happen, that’s hard. It changes you as a person, it changes your life.”
The artist now suffers from PTSD from this trauma, but uses it as an opportunity to advocate for mental health.
“I made it out of that situation. I’m still with the P[T]SD because sometimes it’s triggering for me, but I’m happy and healthy. Just so you guys know, I have a huge scar on my stomach but I deliver it as it’s a warrior scar and I made it and I survived, and for anyone who has gone through anything that’s anxiety [driven] anything that’s bad; get help if you need it!” She said, “mental health is very important and I’m healthy and grateful to be here!”
Sharing this story didn’t hurt DeLeon’s spirits by any means. In fact, she acknowledged the situation with light-hearted appreciation, and proceeded to advise others to go after their dreams as she has done.
“Don’t let anything stop you. Not even the hospital,” she laughed. “Anyone can make it. You’re a song away from your whole life being changed and if you have talent, go for it! Why not?”
Listen to DeLeon’s first single, “Volverás” out now. Keep up with the artist and look out for her debut album release.
Follow: @carmendeleon