By: Fredwill Hernandez
A few weeks go I was going through [what I consider] “Popular Mexican Music” videos on Youtube and [accidently] came across a video that “caught my attention” by AfinArte Music’s exclusive recording artist Kanales, for his song titled “La Pua de los Alambres,” [Spanish for The Barbed Wire’s Thorn] which chronicles the struggles an immigrant faced [even getting cut by barbed wire] while trying to elude the Border Patrol during his journey [through ruff terrain], after leaving his family to pursue a better life.
I knew and “felt” the song and what was captured and conveyed through the video was special, [but] I just could not put my finger on it until I had the privilege and honor to meet and interview Pedro Haros, known artistically as Kanales, about his album [titled] Hombre de 14 Años, and it was then when it all “made sense” and I realized the singer/songwriter “was and is really about it.”
“This is my fourth studio album, but my second for AfinArte Music, and the title of the album which coincidently is also the single is based on the ranch or country side lifestyle of Cosala, Sinaloa, [Mexico]; where my mother is from, and we as fourteen-year-olds [some] due to our family’s circumstances have to take on adult responsibilities at that age. So yes, I pushed an ice-cream cart through the streets of Culiacan, Sinaloa, at age nine; I sold bread with my cousins, and so forth, so I witnessed how fourteen-year-olds [predominately in the country side] grew up [kind of] fast, that’s how the song and album got its name,” explained Kanales, who started composing songs as a [therapeutic] way to deal with and process among [other things] family tragedy. “I lost my little brother due to cancer, then my father passed, after that in 2008, I also lost three brothers. One of my brothers was named Benito, and as a kid they would call him Canales, based on a classic corrido [folktale] song [who among others was sung by Norteño music pioneers’ Los Alegres de Terran] about Benito Canales, who was a Mexican revolutionary during the Zapata era, so that nickname for my brother [as a kid] eventually stuck. That’s why I’m artistically known as “Kanales,” in his memory and honor, since we did everything together and were “very close.”
“Hombre de 14 Años, has 16 original and classic Regional Mexican songs, with two [collaboration] features, Los Austeros De Durango are featured on the song titled “El Tercer,” and [my AfinArte labelmate] El Proto de Sinaloa is also featured on a song titled “Las Tempetades,” added [Kanales] the soft spoken artist who is very pleased to be on the AfinArte [Music] roster. “I love the fact [AfinArte] let’s me be myself, I have the creative freedom to compose and record what “I please” without them trying to change who I am as a person or creatively as an artist.”
