Macaco, Grammy Award nominee
Macaco
Dani Carbonell, commonly known as Macaco, achieved his number 1 hit in Spain, in 2009, for his album Puerto Presente.
He also received the following awards and recognitions:
- Best Album Premio Rolling Stone
- Latin Grammy nominee
- MTV Europe Music Awards nominee
This album in the U.S.A in the first week alone, sold 484.000 copies.
Macaco is an extremely passionate hard working musician and I must congratulate him on his career.
Hard to work with but worth it
Back in 1995, I was busy working in Barcelona helping local musical acts move into the professional touring and recording world.
I had recently started up a company called Barcelona Music, and soon began collaborating in European Funded cultural programs, to help musicians cross borders and establish permanent cooperation amongst cultural entities of the E.U.
One of these projects was called Europe Connection, where every year we would select a Spanish Band, produce an album with them, and tour France with other bands and Cultural Organisations of our network in the E.U.
Dr No – Sony Music
This is when I started to work with Macaco, Dani Carbonell, which back then was still the lead vocalist of the Spanish funk group called Dr No, signed to Sony Records. I must say that Dr No was brutal and powerful on stage.
Dr No applied for the 1995 tour and was selected. So we went into the studio and produced some powerful innovative tracks, that we included in the album Europe Connection 2. This album was made up of a compilation of tracks featuring signed and unsigned artists from the Netherlands, UK, Ireland, Italy and Belgium.
Tour of France
Afterwards, we toured France smashing it on stage. Dr No, the band members including Dani Carbonell (Macaco), were a true representation of originality and extreme human expression.
Once again I applaud his passion for music. I still remember the good and bad times, the quarrels, the long hours of driving and the hardship of surviving on tight budgets.
In a way I must say that the hardship was overcome by the sheer beauty of exploding on stage, and bringing to life sensations that we could share with the French passionate audiences.
This joy of uniqueness is what I share with my students at my school of music.
