“If I can’t sing again, don’t wake me up anymore,” she told the surgical oncologists who were about to remove her thyroid cancer at the INCAN (National Cancer Institute) in Mexico City. She was 26, an unknown singer with an uncertain future in a foreign country. But the surgery saved her, she didn’t lose her voice and she didn’t lose faith in her career as an artist. She reinvented herself, shortened her name, changed her look and wrote “Hospital”, a song about her cancer nightmare.
Today, with millions of albums sold throughout the world, Mon Laferte has established herself as a major Latin American singer-songwriter. She won four Latin Grammy Awards and performed on legendary stages including Coachella, Vive Latino, Viña del Mar, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, Movistar Arena Chile, Movistar Arena Argentina and Mexico City’s Auditorio Nacional, among others.
Mon Laferte, whose full name is Norma Monserrat Bustamante Laferte, is a 41-year-old Chilean singer-songwriter and visual artist. As a musician, she feels at home in a wide variety of genres. Drawing on the musical influences she cultivated in her teenager years in her native town Viña del Mar, and on the music she discovered in Mexico, where she’s been living since 2007, she was able to release her first two albums independently.
To date, she has released eight albums: Desechable (2011), Tornasol (2013), Mon Laferte Vol. 1 (2015), La Trenza (2017), Norma (2018), SEIS (2021), 1940 Carmen (2021) y Autopoiética (2023). These works are the result of her experimentation and practicing trial and error despite the fear.
NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY ON MON LAFERTE
Mon Laferte, the cancer survivor who won four Latin Grammys, is the subject of a new Netflix documentary that will premiere on 1 August 2024. MON LAFERTE, te amo is the intimate portrait of an artist who overcame a brutal childhood and went on to transform Latin American music. Netflix joins Mon in the middle of a world tour, as she’s about to become a mother for the first time. She confronts the deep wounds left by a past filled with abuse, deprivation and an enduring quest for love.
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