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In film noir and hard-boiled novels, the femme fatale is a figure of doom, a role that constricts women by tying their sexuality to danger, betrayal and menace.
In stark contrast, Mon Laferte’s album “Femme Fatale” is a fierce declaration of independence by a musician who refuses to be bound by anybody’s script. The Chilean-born Mexican pop star arrives in San Jose for her only Bay Area date Nov.
6 at the SAP Center in the wake of a remarkable run that has confirmed her status an artist unfettered by stylistic conventions. Released late last year, the jazz-and-cabaret inspired “Femme Fatale” was widely hailed as one of 2025’s best Latin albums.
While fans were still reveling in the various personas she adopted for the drama-laden project, Laferte followed up on June 12 with “Femme Fatale Vol. 2,” a dauntingly ambitious double album that leaps nimbly across genres, moods, and instrumental settings.
In the past she’s often deployed regional Mexican styles, but Laferte can’t be contained by borders. From alt-rock and acid folk to art pop and retro soul, she refuses to stay in any particular groove.
If there’s a “Femme Fatale” throughline it’s her big, pliable voice, which soars, growl s, croons and sighs over the orchestral production (while tamping down for an intimate duet with St. Vincent).
It turns out that she wrote all the “Femme Fatale” music at the same time, a prolific outburst that’s an impressive feat unto itself.
“Writing songs is one of the things that I love the most about being alive,” she told veteran Latin music journalist Ernesto Lechner in a recent Los Angeles Times interview. “Once I enter that mode, I get stuck in it.
Sometimes I’m at the market, suddenly hear a random sentence, and then it becomes part of a tune. I also steal a lot of cool phrases from my son.” Her rise as one of the defining figures in 21st century Latin pop has faced considerable hurdles.
Laferte has openly discussed managing bipolar disorder, maintaining an even keel while not fully suppressing the manic edge that can fuel her creative productivity. She talks about music as a transformative force that swept her up as a child.
Growing up near Santiago, she discovered that her powerful pipes set her apart from her primary school peers. “I was very shy as a little girl, and was bullied after changing schools,” she told Lechner.
“But I was asked to sing one day, and since th en became the most popular student.
As a teenager I started to sing on street corners and I noticed that my voice was naturally potent — it could prevail over the traffic and the street noises.” Born Monserrat Bustamante, she started gaining attention as a teenager on the Chilean reality TV competition “Rojo,” which led to a four-year run on the series and her hit debut studio album, “La Chica de Rojo.” Looking for a bigger stage she moved to Mexico City in 2007, but just as her career was gaining traction she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Treatment put her voice at risk, and the early brush with mortality led to a new creative identity that centered on her original, often confessional music.
Returning to the stage, she reintroduced herself as Mon Laferte, not “because I want to be someone else,” she told a British publication devoted to Spanish-language culture.
“Rather, life’s circumstances have led me to change a great deal, and I felt I needed to start from scratch.” Her new sound took shape with her 2015 album “Mon Laferte, Vol.1,” which led to an MTV award for her single “Tu Falta De Querer” and two Latin Grammy nominations.
She took home a Latin Grammy for “Amárrame,” a single with Colombian rock star Juanes, from her critically hailed 2017 album “La Trenza,” which also garnered three more nominations.
Outspoken about politics in Chile, she’s an activist and visual artist whose paintings were featured in the solo exhibit “Gestos” at the Museum of Mexico City.
If Laferte hasn’t crossed over to the Anglosphere, it’s largely because she’s only recorded a handful of songs in English, which she included on her 2021 album “1940 Carmen” (written while undergoing successful fertility treatment in Los Angeles).
Some music fans discovered her via her Spanish-language version of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” on the band’s massive project celebrating the 30th anniversary of their eponymous “Black Album.” It’s a good color for a femme fatale, but Laferte isn’t lurking in the shadows.
Incandescent and irrepressible, she’s an artist painting outside the lines.
Gợi ý thực hành:
1. Theo dõi thông báo từ cơ quan địa phương tại California.
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