Bodine Talks New Album “Quemo Lento”

Within the music video for her piano-driven interlude “Bambi,” Bodine poses in the midst of a dense forest, artistically garbed in assorted animal bones as she croons over the black and white footage with an ear-catching voice that straddles mezzo and alto ranges. The visible doubled as an announcement video for her sophomore EP, “Quemo Lento,” which dropped final month. Nonetheless, if anybody obtained the impression the challenge would hinge on somber instrumentals, her different tracks rapidly proved them fallacious. The follow-up singles “No Me Quiere Más Na'” and “Nalgaje” current a saucier and extra liberated model of Bodine. However who’s the true Bodine? Is it the contemplative, artsy soul hinted at within the first observe, or the one who takes pleasure in homaging vedette Iris Chacón and singing catchy odes to booties? The reply is unsurprising to those that know her — she’s each.

Born in Amsterdam, Bodine Koehler Peña and her household relocated to Puerto Rico when she was 8, and that is the place she spent her early life. After a short stint in a Catholic elementary college in Outdated San Juan, she enrolled within the Escuela Especializada en Ballet Julián E. Blanco. The establishment supplied a chance to study each conventional programs and dance.

“We skilled from 7:30 within the morning till 11:30, after which took a bathe, [ate] lunch, and had teachers till 5,” she says. Bodine does not hesitate to confer with herself as having been a “wild baby” throughout her early teenage years, spurring her mom into discovering one other outlet for all that vitality.

“I by no means adopted guidelines,” she says, slyly grinning. “And my mother was like, ‘Wow, I’ve to search out issues for her to do, to actually hold her off the road.’ I used to be making too many buddies too quick.”

Her resolution wasn’t far-off: an outdated piano that they had in the home usually grabbed Bodine’s consideration. “I’d all the time sit down and play some disparates,” she laughs. Noting her curiosity in music, her mom obtained her formal piano courses at San Juan’s Division of Artwork and Tradition. Quickly after, her grandfather helped cowl the prices of enrolling her on the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, the place she finally took programs in piano, songwriting, and opera singing.

Throughout this time, Bodine gained what she at this time calls a “survival intuition” that she’s harbored ever since. Her household relied totally on public transportation, however the surplus of courses she was taking meant her days ended late. She and her mom would stroll dimly lit streets and bridge underpasses to bus stops, usually paying with cash that they had scrounged up. Removed from the façade of the carefree, impossibly lovely mannequin that got here later, Bodine seems again at these days as tinged with uncertainty and fear. To listen to her inform it, her ambitions had been born from a need to guard her household, whom she noticed was sacrificing a lot for her.

“It was a necessity. The best way it got here to me, it was not even me actually in search of it,” Bodine says. “I used to be identical to, ‘I’ve to handle my mother.'”

Her most vital break got here on the younger age of 13 and resulted from a spur-of-the-moment resolution. As she tells it, on an impressed whim, she walked into the Calle Loíza places of work of notable Puerto Rican designer Harry Robles and declared herself his subsequent mannequin. Her spunkiness and confidence impressed Robles, and the very subsequent day, she had the gig. This was step one on the trail that led to her changing into Miss Puerto Rico and collaborating in Miss Universe 2012 in entrance of hundreds of thousands.

Whereas she tries to not dwell on her years because the reigning Miss Puerto Rico and her experiences afterward as a budding mannequin in New York Metropolis, particularly in mild of the extra upbeat and optimistic taste of “Quemo Lento,” she shares that that section of her profession created an arc that has molded her into who she is at this time. She’s happy with the work, however readily admits she took the chance due to its advantages.

“The explanation I obtained in there was they advised me, ‘Hey, you’ll get some cash. You’ll get a automotive.’ And I wanted [to pay for] college, I wanted a automotive, I wanted to purchase books, I wanted to assist my household,” she says. What got here after her participation in Miss Universe was one other deck of playing cards, one that did not end up in her favor. In keeping with Bodine, lately, ladies who’re profitable in pageants go on to seem in TV exhibits or obtain higher alternatives for his or her careers. However in her time, she says, “it wasn’t like that.”

“I had to supply for my household, for myself, and so I needed to depart and hustle.”

She continues: “You end, and then you definately’re like, ‘I would like work, I would like an revenue.’ So I needed to go get that. I had to supply for my household, for myself, and so I needed to depart and hustle.”

Bodine does not water down the disillusion she felt. “It was lots. I had lots of people round me [those days]. I had plenty of ‘buddies’ round me. And the reality is I used to be 17, 18, 19 when all this occurred,” she says. When she returned to fending for herself, actuality turned a chilly splash in her face. “That is when you realize who your folks actually are. I had no help. All my ‘buddies’ weren’t my buddies. And that will get actually lonely. That was lonely, and really disappointing, and really heartbreaking.”

The typically poisonous negativity from the press and public that threatened to overshadow her reign was additionally disheartening. Today, she tackles it in a extra holistic method regardless of agreeing that the media’s hyper-focus on “messy” celebrities tends to be merciless.

“It’s merciless. And I believe I simply knew that it was a part of the method. While you’re within the public eye, it’s good to perceive that you just simply want to actually be captivated with what you need in your life and converse to that, as a result of it doesn’t matter what, there’s all the time going to be negativity,” she says. “There’s all the time going to be individuals who attempt to push you down.”

Even again then, Bodine was conscious of the actual vitriol reserved for girls, particularly younger ladies, who had been scrutinized greater than the typical individual and got much less leeway and charm to make errors. She’s grateful she obtained by it, and extra so that there’s accountability now that did not exist again then.

“I believe all ladies had been in a scenario the place they had been utterly weak. And hey, dangerous timing, I suppose. I believe at this time not all people can say no matter they need about specific ladies,” she says. “Again then — that is earlier than the #MeToo motion — you may say something and the whole lot. And I am certain plenty of women skilled that, not solely in my world however in [other industries].”

Her post-Miss stint as a mannequin was additionally rocky and uphill at first, owing to that very same lack of help. “I did not know anyone. I had no company. I utilized [and] everybody stated no to me. I utilized to greater than 20 companies, from probably the most deep dungeon ones to the highest. And so they all stated no,” she says.

The scenario turned so dire it started to resemble an absurdist comedy at one level. “I bear in mind I used to be so pressured that I had a lot pimples throughout. I used to be so pressured I actually grew a beard,” she laughs. “I used to be so determined for work that I went to the booker, and I am like, ‘Take heed to me. I would like a job. I have to get booked. I am going to do something. I might do [a] Proactiv marketing campaign. I can do something, I can do even Gillette.'”

As destiny would have it, she did finally get signed, and regular work started to reach. Nonetheless, the phantoms of her previous and her survival intuition by no means went away. Twelve years and two albums later, Bodine seems again on what has led her to at this time with a mixture of gratitude and melancholy. “Celos,” her underrated first EP, was imbued with a darker sound, even when it was attempting to be a joint that would nonetheless go as sensual and club-worthy. The explanation for that’s clear in hindsight.

“It was a time I used to be actually depressed,” she shares. “I used to be about to . . . cease being within the trade.” She bumped into the identical roadblocks that had pestered her for over a decade since her pageant days. Specifically, individuals attempting to field her right into a persona that was nowhere near who she felt she was. It is a huge motive she’s maintained being an unbiased artist to this point.

“I did not submit [to industry pressure],” she says. “In order that challenge was born from a spot of restarting throughout.”

She’s nonetheless striving to develop as an artist, and simply as oysters create pearls from irritants that invade their system, Bodine sees the whole lot she went by as a course of that has made her extra formidable than ever as a girl and a artistic. She credit meditation as probably the most vital instruments that helped her harness her experiences positively, saying she took it up early in her profession as a result of “there was plenty of ready time” to bask in it. However she additionally says she feels grateful for her artwork in terms of taking pictures down any criticism or negativity.

“I really feel protected by music. I believe that music, my work, will all the time speak for me,” she says. “Quemo Lento,” with its different providing of genres and eclectic visitor artists, tells the world that she’s feeling far more optimistic.

“I am in a superb place — blissful and actually proud, and eventually doing what I’ve truly needed to do my entire life. I want I had been right here earlier than, however I simply comprehend it wasn’t my time but,” she says. “I needed to undergo this entire factor to assist my household and alter my circumstances. And it was powerful, however we’re right here now.”

It would’ve been a sluggish burn, however she’s made it and is prepared for what’s subsequent.

Juan J. Arroyo is a Puerto Rican freelance music journalist. Since 2018, he is written for PS, Remezcla, Rolling Stone, and Pitchfork. His focus is on increasing the canvas of Latin tales and making Latin tradition — particularly Caribbean Latin tradition — extra seen within the mainstream.