Ismael Serrano

With La memoria de los peces (1998), he took a step further. Here, he no longer sang just about love or uncertainty, but about what was happening south of the map. «Vine del norte» addressed NGOs in Chile demanding justice for dictatorship crimes, and «A las madres de Mayo» became a tribute to the women who, for decades, never stopped searching for their disappeared. These weren’t protest songs in the conventional sense: they were testimonies with melodies that stuck, as if pain could be sung without falling into grandiloquence. The album sold platinum again, but the most interesting part was how Serrano made the political and the intimate one and the same.

Then came the shift: Los paraísos desiertos (2000) arrived with jazz in its veins. It wasn’t a radical change, but a natural evolution. The album includes «Km. 0», a song that ended up in a film soundtrack and earned him a Goya Award nomination. But what’s curious isn’t the award, but how that track—and the entire album—proved Serrano could move between genres without losing his essence. Meanwhile, he continued collaborating on charitable projects: from Son de niños to Encuentros en La Habana, where he shared the stage with names like Joan Manuel Serrat or Pablo Milanés. These weren’t collaborations out of trend, but out of conviction: music as a bridge.

In 2002 came La traición de Wendy, an album where bossa nova, blues, and jazz held hands. Songs like «Fue terrible aquel año» sounded mature, yet without losing that ability to connect with the audience. The album reached number one in Madrid record stores and opened doors in South America: Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay… The tour that followed was long, but not just for commercial success. Serrano carried something else: the idea that music could be an act of resistance, even in times of war. In fact, between 2001 and 2003, as the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq invasion shook the world, he composed «Aquella tarde» and «Zona cero». Those songs—later included in Principio de incertidumbre (2003)—weren’t pamphlets, nor did they stay abstract. They were the reflection of an artist who kept looking around, even when the noise was deafening.

Principio de incertidumbre was a live album recorded at Madrid’s Teatro Lope de Vega on September 8 and 9, 2003, with the theater packed. It wasn’t just a recording: it was a career retrospective, but also a space for new songs and collaborations. Fredi Marugán, his longtime guitarist, was still there with the arrangements, and Javier Bergia’s percussion gave it that groove that had become his trademark. But what stood out most was the mix of old and new: versions of his earliest hits alongside songs like «Aquella tarde», which sounded urgent, as if written yesterday. The tour that followed lasted until late 2004, and in the meantime, he was already preparing what came next. Because for Serrano, music was never a destination, but a path walked by playing notes and telling stories.