Whether you liked it or not, Nena Daconte, if you weren’t deaf in the second half of the 2000s, I’m sure you knew the chorus of one of her most famous songs by heart. In fact, you probably still remember. It began with the phrase “I had so much to give you”, which is now also the title of the biography of Mai Meneses, the person behind the artistic project and former contestant Triumph operation. A career marked by stones along the way, success and mental health problems.
From Mai Meneses to Nena Daconte
We met Nena Daconte in 2002 by her first name, when she participated in the second edition of Triumph operation Y became his first expelled. A fleeting step through the most famous television academy that he confesses he did not take as well as he intended and that took its toll on his career. Or that he propelled her indirectly, depending on how you look at it.
Although now triumphants like Aitana and Amaia have hit him with their music from minute one after the end of the program, in his time it was not well seen to have gone through the talent. In fact, she herself tells in the book how “other singers and radio stations signed a pact so that only seven artists would play of the program between those of the first and the second edition. The rest were vetoed.”
He had no choice but to radically change his image and career. This is how Nena Daconte was born, a name borrowed from a character in the story The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In addition, the project became a duet with the addition of Kim Fanlo. They self-release their first album in 2005: I have lost my shoeswhich contained his hits Moron And what star will it be on? Getting the attention of Universal who would later re-release the album and singles.
Gold record, awards such as Ondas, a nomination for the MTV European Music Awards… Everything was going great when in 2008 the duo released their second album: carnival remnantswhere his macrohit was included I had so much to give you. The success was once again enormous, becoming a platinum disc, performing more than 200 concerts in a year and counting on the film director Juan Antonio Bayona to get behind the cameras in the video clip of his single Aleph.
Professional and sentimental rupture
In 2010, Mai and Kim decide to end their personal and professional relationship. The Madrilenian alleged at that time “that there was no longer artistic rapport” as a reason for the breakup and they ended up fighting over the name of the group, which she finally kept. It would take eleven years for Meneses to open up on Instagram about the toxic relationship they had:
“I always felt guilty for not knowing how to handle the emotions that ended up leading to that separation. Too much ego, too much insecurity. I felt recriminated from the outside for not being emotionally mature enough. And they made me pay for it. And she hurt me because it was the same thing I thought of myself, ”she wrote in a long text posted on her account.
It was also accompanied by some vignettes in which she represented what happened and where she reflected that being a duo had been practically an imposition and that she never felt valued by her partner and even by the musicians in her band. “I had to run away so that the wave would not take me ahead. That’s called surviving, although he never again succeeded in music. That was secondary, very secondary. Money, fame, recognition… They are fine, of course, but health comes first,” adds the singer-songwriter in said publication.
Soloist and six-year hiatus
Mai Meneses continued with Nena Daconte solo and between 2010 and 2019 she published three more feature films: A fly on the glass (produced by Alejo Stivel), I only bite for you Y Luck… With a distance in time from the last and penultimate of six years. The reason was mental health problems.
I had so much to give you: Love, music, anxiety, dreams and madness (Various works)
Mai has now recognized that she did not know how to manage success and had impostor syndrome. “I thought I didn’t deserve anything good that was happening to me. I started with my paranoia. That distorted reality and that’s when I said I couldn’t take it anymore,” the Madrid native recently stated.
In his autobiography he talks at length about how those problems can be traced back to the time when which star will it be It was loud on the radio. She smoked joints and began to abuse alcohol, which helped her escape and, in her own words, “was a way of being momentarily happy.” She began a stage of self-destruction that ended in his first psychotic break.
On your way to healing, recounts having had several different psychiatric diagnoses: psychotic depression, bipolar personality disorder, anxiety… Without even knowing the name of the problem, what he had got worse and, of all the toxic relationships he had, the worst he realized was with music , so he left it and disappeared.
He even left Spain and was living in Dallas with his family. With distance, therapy and meditation she was finally able to return to music with her fifth studio work, the EP Luck, and what’s coming…
Coming soon
Currently, his career lives at a time of come back and it is that not only has he just published his autobiography with Plaza & Janés, I had so much to give youin March 2023 his latest album will be released: Almost perfect. He will do it with the help of the Subterfuge record company and a sound that travels to the pop-rock of the 90s. In fact, he has already presented two singles: Wake me up Madrid Y behind every light.
In addition, personally, she has been married to Eduardo Baeza Pérez-Fontán for almost 10 years and they have two children from their relationship.
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Cover photo | @nenadaconte_oficial
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