C. Tangana threatens with the withdrawal in his documentary: "I have to close the episode of music"

• Interview C. Tangana: "In Spain we do not claim many things because we have a stupid cultural complex"
• C. Tangana Tour: the favorite star for festivals, with the most ambitious and expensive show of the summer

C. Tangana has suggested so many times that he would like to leave the music that those threats are already a built-in trait of his character. They are probably not a deliberate trick to bring some drama to his future, but an unabashed confession: from time to time, the singer gets fed up with everything, even himself (especially himself).

"I have to get the music episode closed. It's that all the time I say that it's going to close and it doesn't close. I would stop in my tracks."

So he says at the end of the documentary This excessive ambition. He insists on his existential crisis: "The only thing I would want one hundred percent, and for which I would find enough passion to dedicate time, would be to do hip hop in the style I did when I was 16 years old."

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C. Tangana reissues El madrileño with three new songs and cover by Carlos Saura

• Writing: EL MUNDO

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Music.

El Madrileño by C. Tangana, the best-selling album of 2021 in Spain

• Writing: EUROPA PRESS

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And his mother (his mother!) says: "He doesn't want to have exposure anymore. He's going to make movies and he's going to stop having as much exposure."

"Right now I don't want to do another tour. First I have to see if I make music, "he says, near the end of the film, collapsed after a tour that under several points of view could be described as disastrous.

So, is C. Tangana retiring? Do you leave the music? Well, it does not seem likely and, according to several sources consulted, it is not the artist's plan, but that is the suspense ending that leaves after the 135 minutes of This excessive ambition, the documentary that was presented this Wednesday at the San Sebastian Film Festival. On October 26 it will be released in cinemas and then it can be seen on Movistar +.

C. Tangana in the documentary 'This excessive ambition'. WORLD

The threat of retirement is the new cliffhanger in the 33-year-old singer's career, but the central theme of this ambitious and somewhat chaotic documentary is his 2022 tour, which was ambitious and chaotic in superlative amounts.

In 2020, the cream rapper, trapper in the slime and accidental reggaeton had decided that he was getting older for all that and that it was time to make an album that listened to all of Spain. And, in an amazing way, he succeeded: with his combination of rumba, traditional Latin music and the tumbao that the handsome have when walking, El madrileño was a huge success in all aspects, the artistic, the commercial and in that intangible that is the popularity of masses. The country connected with the album in a profound way, made it its own, enjoyed it, sang it and danced it: it lived it.

The documentary begins with a late-night conversation in a Havana hotel, shortly before the lockdown is decreed. It is at that moment when the singer decides to orient his career towards a wider audience; "charge the C. Tangana marketiniano", as they say at the time.

"I'm always addressing the youth, I already want to stop it," he tells his manager. "I've discredited myself as an artist," he continues. "I'm one of the best artists this generation has ever had. And the speech is: 'He's very intelligent, he knows what he wants.' Yes, and I write some bars (verses with force) and I come up with some production ideas and I am a piece of artist like the top of a pine tree, "he exclaims angrily.

C. Tangana, during a concert of the tour Sin Cantar ni Afinar.MUNDO

Rage and private conversations are the two elements that form the backbone of the entire documentary. Three people followed C. Tangana for more than a year to show not what was happening on stage, but behind and around it.

The Spaniard was much more than the most listened to album in Spain in 2021 and his 2022 tour unfolded as a dazzling spectacle: something never seen in the pop of our country. He has a reputation for being a good strategist as an artist, but the goat had thrown into the bush and not all the mountain is orgasm. From within, the show moved forward like a monster devouring itself.

"Making money is an art./ Working is an art./ Good business is the best of the arts," recited the Spaniard in 2018 in the song Baile de la lluvia, making Andy Warhol's famous concept his own. It could not be less consistent with the tour Sin Cantar ni Afinar, a financial disaster for its, well, excessive ambition: more than 30 musicians on stage, a giant screen, a complex realization with several cameras ... "I want people to feel like they're inside a party," he says in the documentary; "The goal is to make live cinema," he says later.

"I've been working on this tour for a year and I'm not going to see a fucking euro," says Kigo, his manager, at a key moment in the documentary, a meeting held when the first concerts have already begun and it has become clear that the show is not going to be profitable. "This tour was to make millions," he adds. "We had a show for a Wanda and we've done a WiZink," says Chave, her financier. "We knew from the first moment that it was a ruin," insists Kigo, who explains again and again that he had tried to convince him to use a simpler touring format. "We would be millionaires."

And Pucho, who has made money one of the central themes of his career, says: "Of the six million we had on the table to invoice we are going to spend six and a half." Shortly after, the losses are already estimated at one million. They are seriously considering cancelling the tour.

The tension between the artist and his representatives, with whom he has built his entire career, increases during the concerts in Latin America, which begin with two setbacks: the cancellation in the Dominican Republic due to a tropical storm and almost another cancellation in Mexico due to the delay of a good part of the team. While C. Tangana feels "abandoned" by his managers, they worked in Madrid to put together the almost 20 concerts in summer festivals throughout Spain. "I said, 'But is this kid an asshole or what's wrong?'" exclaims Chave into the camera. Before she says desperately, "It's like a fucking little boy."

And C. Tangana, vulnerable, unstable, is not satisfied with the music itself either. There is a rather sad scene that shows it perfectly. He says very nervously before going on stage at the WiZink Center in Madrid: "It's the most important concert of my fucking life." After performing we see him serious in the dressing room looking at the mobile without talking to his girlfriend, then he begins to complain about the wind arrangements and describe the show as a disaster.

His phobia of live shows during the feature film and is one of the issues that best explain the monumental dimensions of the tour (an attempt at revenge) and the constant emotional ups and downs. Insecurity looms in phrases such as "Do you know the panic I have to sing?" and, in reference to the rehearsals, "I'm up to the eggs, I'm never going to do it again in my life."

Well, we all say a lot of things that we then don't deliver. One of the last scenes of the film is a dinner of C. Tangana with which he wants to thank the work and patience of his closest collaborators. "Sometimes I'm selfish, rude, I thought you had to be a shark in the industry and I've pushed you to be a son of a bitch with people," he says crying to his manager.

So, will we hear new music by C. Tangana again? It seems quite likely. Will it be similar to El madrileño? Almost certainly not. Will we see him again on stage? Good question for tomorrow's press conference.

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