Andrés Cepeda: “Bogotá is the natural setting for most of my stories”

The life of Colombian singer Andrés Cepeda cannot be understood without Bogotá, a city that is “the natural setting” for most of his songs, has inspired him for more than 30 years of career and gives its name to what will be his fifteenth studio album.

“The album is called ‘Bogotá’ and has many references to its streets, its places, its neighborhoods, its climate, its sunny days, its rainy days, everything that it can evoke in us (…) I grew up in Bogotá, which is the natural setting for most of my stories,” Cepeda said in an interview with EFE in the Colombian capital.

Andrés Cepeda continues a history of more than 30 years

The first track to that production is the single ‘El Café’, released last Friday and which talks regarding his “relationship with the city” and is a continuation of ‘Fue solo amor’, a song he wrote for his first love 30 years ago and which was released when he was part of the band Poligamia.

“It’s a song that not only talks regarding my city, but also regarding my relationship with the city. It’s a relationship that is very old and it’s the continuation, or the resumption, of a song that I wrote almost 30 years ago, when we were making Poligamia’s second album,” he says.

Colombian singer Andrés Cepeda speaks during an interview with EFE, on July 3, 2024, in Bogotá (Colombia).

The 50-year-old singer recalled that story and let his imagination fly to revisit the story of ‘It Was Only Love’: “What would happen if I might go back to that moment and be with that person once more and revisit that story?”

“I wanted to imagine what would happen if under the same sky in the same city, in the same place, at the same time of day, with the same music in the background, one might meet that first love once more,” adds Cepeda, who explains that the new song “is very different (from Poligamia) but is inspired by that experience.”

Nostalgic tint

Throughout his career, Cepeda has imprinted a nostalgic tone on his songs, both sad and happy, and that, he says, is something that ‘El Café’ and the new album carry.

“I found it funny that the album started to have that flavor of a delicious nostalgia, which is a nostalgia that looks back, but not with sadness, not with disappointment, not with disillusionment, but with a lot of joy, with a lot of celebration of life,” says the artist.

Colombian singer Andrés Cepeda speaks during an interview with EFE, on July 3, 2024, in Bogotá (Colombia).

In this sense, Cepeda values ​​the fact that all the artists who have lived in the city at some point take “something from it” and put it into their work.

“We all take something from our city and make it palpable in our music. I think that my work adds to a number of artists who express themselves and use the city as inspiration or even as a means of expression,” he adds.

A dream come true

Cepeda will also fulfill a career dream this year: giving a show at the El Campín stadium in Bogotá on December 13 following visiting six other cities in Colombia and following a successful tour of Europe and the United States.

“After touring a lot around the world, being successful in other places, filling huge venues in other countries, coming to do that at home, in Bogotá, where you have all that connection and all that emotion to sing in your own home, in a full stadium is something very exciting, which makes me very happy,” says the artist, who receives this “as a prize” and a “thank you” from his city.

Bogota / EFE