Mon Laferte Is Ever-Evolving. Her Autopoiética Tour Encourages You To Reinvent Yourself, Too

Mon Laferte is in the dressing room of the McAllen Performing Arts Center in McAllen, Texas, when she logs into the video call. When we speak, she is relaxing before her performance. I ask her how she prepares to face the public. “I usually watch concert videos,” she says. “I love to watch Freddie Mercury performances, for example. For me, he is one of the best-performing artists in the world.” 

But she isn’t ready to step onstage yet. She still has to complete her pre-performance ritual and instead of the usual baroque looks that have, as of late, defined her on-stage aesthetic, Laferte is wearing a casual outfit: no makeup, a black cap, and an oversized hoodie. The Mexican-Chilean singer-songwriter is currently circling the U.S. on her Autopoiética tour to promote her latest album of the same name. Her ninth studio album, Autopoiética is a concept project about self-transformation and being comfortable with the constant (re)becoming that life requires. 

“Sonically, it’s a very eclectic album. Before creating the songs, I had a concept in my head, an idea. I had images, but I didn't have any songs. So I made the album from the concept of autopoiesis,” she says. “It’s a biological term for how beings are autopoetic because we cannot create ourselves, but our cells have the ability to regenerate. So I took this idea, metaphorically, poetically speaking, that we can be recreating ourselves all the time, but also in life, in everyday life. And we can always be a new version of ourselves.”

In biology, autopoiesis can also describe a network that works to maintain itself. In Laferte’s album, surviving as a woman in the public eye results in the artist’s questioning of a static sense of self. At 41, Laferte has been a public figure since at least 2003; she has seen critiques about her art, her politics, and her music for at least two decades. In “NO+SAD” — a bass-filled reggaeton track where Laferte uses the raspy, defiantly sexy register of her voice — she sings from the perspective of her critics, who condemn everything from her breasts, to her political beliefs, to her age: “Tetas caídas / Que es una gata / Illuminati, quiere la plata / Que es comunista / Es masoquista / Yo no le creo, es capitalista / ... Que es feminazi / Está más vieja, ya no está flaca.”

“‘NO+SAD’ is satire. It's black humor. It's about laughing at myself,” Laferte says. “In general, I try to approach life with humor, but I have a very bitter humor. I compiled all things that the public tells me on social networks, and I put them in the song because the criticism always depends on the lens.”

She continues: “To some, I am a communist. To others, I am a capitalist. And for others, I am a feminazi. And for others, I am not feminist enough, so everything depends on the perspective of whoever is looking at me.”

Laferte exists in a difficult space in the music industry: a Latina who has made political statements in her music and life, who exists across borders and cultures that might be difficult to put together seamlessly. In 2019, Laferte went to the Latin Grammys wearing a long black coat with no shirt beneath it, a green bandana that has become the symbol of the movement for reproductive rights in Latin America around her neck, and the words “In Chile, they torture, rape, and kill” emblazoned on her chest. This appearance is one in a long list of political stances Laferte has taken in her career, music, and interviews, which has elicited criticism on all sides of the political spectrum. 

“I put all that [criticism] in that song, and in the end I say, ‘Well, if people are going to say things all the time because that's how human beings are, the important thing is that I already try to not be sad or not to be worried about what people are saying,” she says. 

On a more relatable level, the song is about receiving unwanted feedback, particularly as a woman. “This is something we all go through today because of social media,” she adds. “There’s always someone who says something that ruins your day, from innocent comments like ‘you're thinner’ to comments that I suddenly receive like, ‘I hope you and your whole family dies.’” But in the end, Laferte vows to no longer feel sad about all the different ways she fails in the eyes of the public and that, in itself, is a transformation. 

With this context, the metamorphosis that Laferte is singing about in Autopoiética becomes a thesis for the right to change. Though naysayers have told Laferte throughout her career that she is too left-wing or not left-wing enough, too this and not enough that, the singer-songwriter is now arguing that she should be able to change and transform, to sit in her contradictions, even as a woman public figure. It should be okay for Laferte, for example, to decide she no longer wants to be a singer, to change her whole life just because. And that extends to other people, too. In the song “Metamorfosis,” Laferte sings: “Serle fiel a una misma es oro / que se escuche fuerte el coro” (“Being loyal to yourself is gold / let the chorus resound”), but it turns out the song is not just a message for herself. It’s about her nephew, a trans boy who Laferte loves very much. 

“This song was particularly inspired by my nephew who is transitioning. He is a trans boy, so this song is about being who we want to be,” Laferte says. “And it feels obvious because the song is called ‘Metamorfosis,’ but it’s a really fun song, it’s very queer, and it says, ‘Let’s be who we want to be and have fun.’ We can find mirrors in other people, you know? As in, I don’t only sing about myself, I sing about what I observe in those who are closest to me. And the concept of metamorphosis also speaks to who I want to be now and who I want to be tomorrow. If I wanted to be a writer instead of a singer, or if I wanted to transition tomorrow, it’s all good. It’s cool. We are constantly changing, making decisions in our day-to-day that 10 years ago, we wouldn’t have made.”

Self-acceptance seems to be Laferte’s guiding star. Her song “Amantes Suicidas” is about being okay with yourself and feeling content while alone. Laferte says she wrote the song during a predicament with her partner, which made her realize how far she had come emotionally. 

“This is a subject that is very important to me, and I spent years working on it in therapy — it was so hard for me to be alone. I was so scared of loneliness,” she explains. “I am married. I have a husband and a son. But at the time I wrote that song, we were going through a relationship crisis. And I felt good. I felt capable of being alone and not needing to have someone, a partner or someone who makes me feel that I am worth it. No, I already understood that I am worth it, but of course, it has been a long road, and now I feel okay with being alone.” 

After Laferte finishes touring, she’s getting back in the studio to record her next album. And her next concept is already percolating in her mind. “I already have my next album all done — in my head, only in my head,” Laferte says. “But that is the most important thing for me because I already have the concept. When I am making an album, I write notes on it. I record voice notes. I save images on Pinterest. It's like it's not just the songs, you know? I don't have any songs yet, but I already have the concept of the album. That's what excites me, working on new music is what excites me most right now.”