Already on the second leg of his U.S. tour, Mexican singer-songwriter Jorge Siddhartha González, known artistically as Siddhartha, will arrive in Chicago on Friday.
Siddhartha’s return to Chicago is full of new beginnings. The singer-songwriter has not performed in the city since 2016, when he was featured in a “caravan of Latino indie” concert. Those days he shared space in the genre with Mexican groups such as Porter and La Gusana Ciega.
“After all that time, a lot of things have accumulated. We had two failed attempts to go [perform at Chicago’s alternative Latin rock event Ruido Fest]; we were announced and everything, but we couldn’t go because of an immigration issue. But now we are going to get even,” Siddhartha told La Voz in an interview.
Since then, he has released two studio albums: “Memoria Futuro” (2019) and “00:00” (2022), and has been involved in other projects. In 2021, he became a dad following the birth of his son, Mar, alongside his partner, Mexican entrepreneur and YouTuber Mariand Castrejón, known simply as Yuya.
“The tour is living many experiences at high speed,” he told La Voz in Spanish. “Going to new places where you play for the first time and [facing] the challenge they represent, [as well as] playing in places where you already have an audience waiting for you, it’s all a half-infinite journey and that’s part of the charm.”
Without intending to, Siddhartha’s sixth album “00:00” set the stopwatch to zero for a new beginning. The album, like all his works, is a snapshot of the moment, a time capsule not only of personal times but of all humanity.
“I really enjoyed the way it was gestated, which was at different times. It started before the pandemic, developed during and ended right with the pandemic. I don’t know if the title was necessarily a response to the beginning of 2022 when everything started to open up a bit, but at least for me, the title came at the right time when everything that was coming was a new beginning in my work, in my personal life and in my career,” he said.
The album opened doors for him and features collaborations: with Argentinean Emmanuel Horvilleur (Illya Kuryaki and The Valderramas) on the song “Acapulco,” Spanish Ana Torroja (former vocalist of Mecano) on the song “Mapa” and Leiva (also a member of The Guapos) on the song “Nada por hecho”, with the music video for the song directed by Yuya.
Touring the United States and performing in front of a mostly Mexican and Latino audience makes Siddhartha feel at home.
“It’s exciting to play for a group that we don’t see and that suddenly has that connection; it’s like bringing a piece of the country with the music,” he shared. “There is an intimate mood and complicity, like when you meet with a friend you don’t know personally but who is there. And that feeling prevails when we play in other countries, especially in the U.S. where there is a huge Latino community.”
The 2023 tour will culminate on Dec. 9 at the Foro Sol in Mexico City.
“Then we will take a short break to do other things, share new music, make new music and other projects that are not necessarily albums coming next year,” Siddhartha said.
