I'm María José Llergo. I'm from Andalusia, Córdoba, Spain.

And well, I write songs: compose them, record them, and sing them live around the world.

So, I can say that I'm a singer-songwriter and all those things.

In reality, I'm a 29-year-old girl who adores music and wants to spend every day of her life giving it to others as a gift.

Well, I started my music career singing with my grandfather Pepe in the countryside.

While he worked the land, worked the field, shaped canals for the water to pass… while he watered.

I was lucky to be there, listening to him sing.

So, I copied — as if I were playing — his voice and his songs.

And that's how I discovered that I also had a little voice with which I could play — and it became my favorite toy.

Those emotions are what drive me.

So I try to make my voice the purest reflection of what I feel.

And that's how I want to be all the time: honest with the music and honest with the audience.

My voice is a channel that transmits that.

That transmits all the emotions, ideas that are up here, and that ultimately find their way through my singing.

When I want to reflect an emotion, I think as if I were a painter

and I choose sounds as if they were colors on a palette.

Each song has its own intention and its own soul.

So, what I try to do is choose the colors that reflect them best,

mix them, and let them play with each other to make a song that lives up to that emotion.

My land (Andalucía, Spain) is so rich.

It has always been like a meeting point between Africa, Europe, Asia, through the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

We are lucky — oh, and Portugal, too! Another very close country.

We are lucky to be central and to have so many cultures pass through over the years.

The Arabs left their mark. The Romans left their mark… the Phoenicians. Many cultures.

The Jews. Many cultures.

And Andalucía has always been a welcoming land.

Look at its name: from Andalucía come the andaluces.

anda (walk) + luces (lights).

So, I always say that Andalucíans are lights that walk.

That's why we see life with that glow.

Because in reality, our land illuminates us.