Venezuelan Hit Maker Arca Releases Another Album

WHILE CONSIDERING his childhood, Alejandro Ghersi, 26, recalls his then-sizable appetite for pop divas. “The first CD I bought was Brandy and Monica’s The Boy Is Mine,” he says before reliving the cheeky Madonna performances he staged for family members. Over the years, he moved on to darker music that reflected the confusion in his life. “My parents began a messy divorce, [Hugo] Chávez was entering his presidency, and some of the men in my family started giving me subtle cues that they weren’t so comfortable with my performances anymore,” Ghersi says. “I knew that I would have to leave Venezuela in order to figure out who I was.” Born in Caracas, the future producer—now known as Arca—relocated with his family to Darien, Connecticut, at age 3 after his father landed a job on Wall Street. “We were the only non-white family. It was kind of a pivotal point of alienation that still informs my music today,” he says. More…