The historic visit to La Plata by La Mona Jiménez, who will bring “the biggest dance in the universe” to Estadio Único tomorrow, will mark her return to Buenos Aires, a province she has not visited since before the pandemic. At 74 years old, the greatest star of the Cordoba Quartet, a reference for several generations of spectators and musicians, does not stop his career: he is preparing his 102nd album, which he will release in 2026 with “all original songs”, and remains active because “the audience keeps me alive”, while he hopes that “before his death” he will be able to fulfill the great pending task of his life that was thwarted by Bin Laden: “to play in Madison Square Garden”.
In an exclusive interview with EL DIA, who recently landed from his native Cordoba, at the airport where fans arrived who chase him everywhere (he is still surprised by that seven-year-old boy who asked him for a photo while crying), La Mona Jiménez talked about everything. Excuse? He will be presented in La Plata, the city that today will honor him with the double award that Johnny Depp received a few days ago: the illustrious visitor announcement and the handover of the key to the city.
“With this I’m falling on my butt with joy! I could faint all the way from excitement,” he says with a laugh, revealing that he will be the fourth one to receive it: “I have one from Cordoba, one from Ushuaia and one from Jesús María. Also to receive a key in the province of Buenos Aires is a great honor for me.”
History with silver
The story of Lamona and La Plata has a special flavour. As he recalls, this has only happened once in his 58 years of experience. March 2000, Rodrigo Bueno was at his peak, and media pressure cut the distance, but at the same time he wanted to bring them together. The two were part of a presentation for the Public Health Workers Union, which was broadcast live on Kronika TV. There was also El Trece, Canal 9, Gente Magazine and Tota Santillan. La Mona played first and Rodrigo later. The cameras were waiting for the meeting, which did not happen in the end.
– I was in the dressing room, and suddenly he came in, started crying, fell to the floor, knelt down, and I said to him: “Rodrigo, why are you doing this?” He asked me to play with him. I sang first and he finished. But after my performance, Gente magazine took me for a photo shoot, and Rodrigo got mad at me because I didn’t stay to sing with him. But I didn’t have time to come back, because the photographers made me wander here and there and I thought I would come back to sing a song with him, but they kept taking me out of the place. I didn’t have the chance. But it wasn’t my fault.
Three months after this failed encounter, misfortune found Rodrigo, precisely returning from giving another performance in La Plata. The on-stage meeting between two generations of quartets who had publicly declared their admiration for each other – Rodrigo called it “El Charly de Córdoba” – never happened. “But the love and affection that was there between us, no matter where he was, was always there. I always loved him, and he always loved me. And that’s in the DNA of our body and in his soul and his spirit, wherever he was,” Jimenez says.
Crowd man
Without wanting to spoil the surprise she has prepared for Único, La Mona expects that tomorrow will be a “practical international show”, which will begin, according to public demand, with “Estrella de la Mañana”. A huge format, presented as “the biggest dance in the universe”, brought him back to the stage after Covid-19, a time of reflection that helped him to evade and give again. Before the pandemic, he played Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and his wife, Juana, was artistic director. But it was difficult for him to reactivate in this way after isolation: “I no longer have that motivation to come back every day.” Thus was born the idea of doing one big dance a month, which is now under the leadership of her son, Carly. And with all those tools, it comes down to: “We’re bringing the same thing we do at Kemps here,” he warns.
Tens of thousands of people from La Plata are expected to attend the La Plata event, as well as followers from the region and beyond. The last time La Mona was “close” was in 2022, when the city of Buenos Aires honored him for 55 years as a quartet with a free performance in front of the obelisk that gathered, according to the artist’s estimates, more than 180,000 people who took over Diagonal Norte. “People Came All the Way to Plaza de Mayo!” highlights the performers of hits like “Beso a Kiss,” “Who Took All the Wine” and, among hundreds of others, “El Federal.”
And when it comes to communication, La Mona is one of the most knowledgeable people. In 1988, for example, he was almost “exiled” from Cordoba, when he made more than 150,000 people drink all the wine with his show in Piazza Prospero Molina – later called “Kosquin’s Black Night”.
“I’m not saying inside the festival grounds, because no more than 12,000 people enter there, but in the city, which was receiving 40 or 50,000 people, there were about 150,000 people at eight or nine o’clock at night. There was no more place, there were no cigarettes, there was no beer, there was no wine, there was nothing. It seemed that the locusts had come through and eaten everything. The folklorists were angry because they did not have enough to eat locro or drink wine in restaurants; The people who came to see me took it all in, and that’s when the conflict started: they were angry because they said I had ’emptied’ Koskin,” he recalls of that moment that would be the turning point in his work.
Because, as they say, when the door closes, the window opens. Thus, in the midst of controversy, Lamona left Cordoba and was received in Buenos Aires. “I remember there was a signed note in the media from Alfredo Loco, who defended me because I’m from Cordoba, he knew the history of the quartet and he knew who La Mona Jiménez was. I never came to play in Buenos Aires, but the whole country knew me: my songs were heard here, even though they didn’t see me live. I had a big hit with ‘Cortate el pelo, Cabezón’ in 1977 or 1978.”
From nothing to everything. One of his first shows was the same in 1988 in Luna Park, then the well-known story: from the censorship and discrimination that marked his origins (“I was very marginalized, hated by a certain part of society,” he recalls) came popular consecration with confessionals such as ACE, Gardel and Konex; A nationwide following, awards, tours, generations of musicians who have inspired him, and the ongoing production of over 100 albums.
– At this stage of your life, what motivates you to continue going on stage?
– The audience. the people. They make me feel younger and more energetic. My biggest motivation is the audience, which drives me to continue being La Mona. To keep doing that, to keep singing unreleased songs.
-You are about to release your 102nd album: How do you maintain the creative search after a hundred albums?
Two years ago, there were about 1,260 songs on YouTube. Today I should reach 1,300 recorded songs. Not all of them are mine: about 150 songs by other composers that I liked and recorded, and today everyone sings them. But in this new album, all the songs will be mine. I continue to sing because I see that there is a new generation of young men and women who follow and accompany me. I am 74 years old and I see this love. That’s why I keep going. Music gives me health, friends and joy. It makes me feel young, makes me feel alive. If the music wasn’t there, I would feel like a 90-year-old grandfather. On the other hand, I am 74 years old, but my spirit and spirit are still young. I feel young inside, no matter my age.
-After all this travel, is there a dream that you have not yet been able to achieve?
-The only thing left for me to do is play at Madison Square Garden. 23 years ago I was about to do just that. I was actually advertising because I was going to play there. For three years in a row I performed in Dallas, Houston, New Jersey, New York, Los Angeles, Miami… I moved from club to club, alone with a record, paving the way to be my own musician later. Everything was already ready: Los Tigres del Norte was invited and I was thinking of inviting Alejandro Lerner, who was living in Los Angeles. But it turns out that Bin Laden came and upended the towers and rotted everything and sent me to the whore who gave birth to me. I couldn’t travel anymore, they wouldn’t even let me in and that was it. In other words, I am with the religion in my heart divided into two parts. This is my dream before I die: that a singer in the world will invite me to sing there, and I will be very happy.
“The love that I had with Rodrigo was always there. I always loved him, and he always loved me.”