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Interview
12 January 2020 2.00 h

Valtònyc

Rapper exiled in Belgium

“They want to lock me up for my ideology”

“The question is how can things have come so far over a song” “The important thing is basic rights and defending them”
“The right to self-determination is an undeniable democratic right” “My perception of the issue of Catalonia changed on October 1, 2017”
“I’m surviving by adapting and becoming more resilient” ”I’d love someone in Spain to show some sense and say: ’This has to end.’”

Josep Miquel Are­nas Bel­tran is bet­ter known as the rap­per Valtònyc. At the end of No­vem­ber, the Eu­ro­pean Court of Jus­tice’s ad­vo­cate gen­eral ad­vised the courts that Spain could not de­mand Valtònyc’s ex­tra­di­tion from Bel­gium to serve a jail term of three and a half years over the lyrics of his songs be­cause he was con­victed on the basis of a penal code that post­dates the of­fences for which he was found guilty. Valtònyc is now wait­ing for the courts to rule on his ex­tra­di­tion.

How do you see the ad­vo­cate gen­eral’s de­ci­sion?
It’s a legal issue. When you com­mit an of­fence, you have to be aware of what the crime is and that it car­ries a cer­tain pun­ish­ment. Spain took a risk, I guess be­cause when it’s in your own ter­ri­tory any­thing goes.
If it’s so clear, why have things come this far?
The ques­tion is how can things have come so far over a song. I al­ways thought that at some point some­one in Spain would ask why it is worth tar­nish­ing its image abroad for a 25-year-old who worked in a fruit shop and wrote some songs. I’m only well-known be­cause of what has hap­pened, and if they had left me alone the whole issue would have gone nowhere.
While your case is on­go­ing, you’re not al­lowed to leave Bel­gium. What’s life like in Brus­sels?
It’s the life of a Eu­ro­pean cit­i­zen. In Spain, I’d be sub­ject to harsh re­stric­tions be­cause they wanted to lock me up under anti-ter­ror laws. Here I’m just an­other Eu­ro­pean cit­i­zen, de­sign­ing web­sites, study­ing lan­guages, meet­ing new peo­ple, doing sport, try­ing to get on with life. The only thing is that I can’t leave the coun­try and go home.
When you came to Brus­sels you found a group of ex­iled Cata­lans who are here for other rea­sons. What’s your re­la­tion­ship with them?
We saw that we have a shared ob­jec­tive, which is fight­ing for basic rights. Free­dom of ex­pres­sion goes along with the free­dom of a peo­ple to de­cide its fu­ture in a de­mo­c­ra­tic vote. The strat­egy of shar­ing lawyers is a good one, be­cause it re­sponds to the need for unity, to show that we are de­fend­ing the same ex­cep­tional cause.
Why is it an ex­cep­tional cause?
Be­cause in an­other con­text we’d be en­e­mies. A rap­per can never be a friend to politi­cians. I never wanted to get in­volved in pol­i­tics, even when it had been sug­gested to me. But in the con­text of the his­toric re­pres­sion we’re ex­pe­ri­enc­ing, a rap­per and a politi­cian like Puigde­mont have to stand to­gether be­cause that’s what’s called for now. The im­por­tant thing now is basic rights and doing what­ever is re­quired to de­fend them.
What do you think of the Cata­lan cri­sis?
I’m to­tally in favour of the peo­ple being able to de­cide their fu­ture. I think the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion is an un­de­ni­able de­mo­c­ra­tic right and should be con­sid­ered a basic prin­ci­ple in Eu­rope.
Has your per­cep­tion changed since com­ing to Brus­sels?
My per­cep­tion of the issue, as with a lot of peo­ple, changed on Oc­to­ber 1, 2017, when the Cata­lan peo­ple showed them­selves to be an ex­am­ple of re­sis­tance. We have seen very few such ex­am­ples of re­sis­tance in the past hun­dred years. It clicked for a lot of peo­ple when they saw the level of po­lice vi­o­lence that Spain was will­ing to use, as well as the vi­o­lence of im­pris­on­ing peo­ple and re­press­ing the pop­u­la­tion in the way it has.
Did you see it as a dis­tant thing?
I knew about the Cata­lan in­de­pen­dence move­ment be­fore Oc­to­ber 1; I knew it ex­isted in Cat­alo­nia but not in Mal­lorca. There are pro-in­de­pen­dence sup­port­ers in Mal­lorca, but to be a na­tion there has to be a col­lec­tive psy­chol­ogy of na­tion, and un­for­tu­nately this per­cep­tion, which is the main­stream in Cat­alo­nia, is only held by a small mi­nor­ity in Mal­lorca. It had never been my strug­gle. But ob­vi­ously, after Oc­to­ber 1, things changed for fam­ily and neigh­bours, and a part of Mal­lor­can so­ci­ety began to em­pathise with the Cata­lan cause so that it be­came more of our own strug­gle.
One of your main sources of sup­port while in exile has been Lluís Puig. Has it any­thing to do with him being the for­mer cul­ture min­is­ter?
I al­ways tell Lluís that much more than a politi­cian, he’s a per­son to me, and as a per­son he’s been con­cerned for me from the be­gin­ning. We spent last Christ­mas to­gether with our fam­i­lies and we will do the same this year. He’s a friend and one of the best peo­ple I know.
How does a Mal­lor­can sur­vive below Brus­sels’ grey skies?
It’s tough. What’s more, I’d never lived in a city and never thought I would. I’m from Sa Pobla, a very rural town of 12,000 in­hab­i­tants. At the be­gin­ning, and still today, it was a bit stress­ful, and I had to put up with things like spend­ing an hour in the car on a route that should take 10 min­utes. But it’s fine, I’m sur­viv­ing by adapt­ing and be­com­ing re­silient.
Have you come across any other cases like yours?
Spain is the place with the high­est num­ber of artists sen­tenced to prison in the world, al­though that it also be­cause we don’t know how many there re­ally are in China. Yet, it’s worth men­tion­ing that a lit­tle while ago I met the Chi­nese ac­tivist, Ai Wei­wei, who clearly has no sym­pa­thy for the regime in China, and he told me that in a case such as mine they wouldn’t put some­one in prison even in China. Per­haps they would make life dif­fi­cult, cut­ting off their power at home, for ex­am­ple, but they wouldn’t lock them up in prison.
A rap­per was re­cently con­victed to a year in prison and a 100-euro fine in Mo­rocco for crit­i­cis­ing the king. That is in a coun­try with ques­tion marks over its democ­racy, while you got three and a half years in a coun­try con­sid­ered an es­tab­lished democ­racy. What do you think about that?
It’s un­be­liev­able. This case brings us to an in­ter­est­ing con­clu­sion. Eu­ro­pean in­sti­tu­tions, apart from some left­wing par­ties, do not sup­port cases like mine or the other 15 rap­pers con­victed in Spain, be­cause it’s un­com­fort­able for them to say that a coun­try in Eu­rope, which is a con­ti­nent of free­doms and re­spect for human rights, sen­tences peo­ple to prison for songs that crit­i­cise a regime. At the same time, when­ever it is a singer in Mo­rocco, Venezuela or Cuba, or any other coun­try that is not part of the Eu­ro­pean Union and so it is not un­com­fort­able to talk about it, they do give their sup­port. I’m right here and no one from the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment has said any­thing to me.
Has the Eu­ro­pean Union dis­ap­pointed you?
I never put much faith in it. When Eu­rope sides with us, we’re talk­ing about Ger­many, Switzer­land, Bel­gium, es­tab­lished democ­ra­cies, but I don’t be­lieve in the Eu­ro­pean Union as a whole. I think it’s re­ally good for trade agree­ments, but in terms of human rights, I don’t know what to say. If in Melilla there’s a spiked fence, or a de­bate on whether to save a ship with 800 peo­ple on board, then that Eu­rope is no ex­am­ple at all.
How has exile marked you as a rap­per?
Exile has been a great learn­ing process that makes you ma­ture and re­flect. Es­pe­cially at the be­gin­ning, when I first got here, and I spent 33 days with­out going out­side. In those mo­ments you are your own worst enemy and I have not been the same per­son since then.
Has it helped you with writ­ing songs?
It has in­flu­enced every­thing, in­clud­ing how you value life.
How has it changed how you view life?
I some­times think I should have made more of the time spent with friends, fam­ily, every­day things, de­tails that you may have over­looked but that now seem ex­cep­tional.
Are you still per­form­ing?
Not much. I’ve been fo­cus­ing more on the legal front and the media. For some­one who sings in Span­ish and Cata­lan in Bel­gium there are oc­ca­sional gigs, but I don’t have a tour sched­uled.
You said that you’re study­ing lan­guages.
Yes, Eng­lish and French.
Do you see your­self doing a song in ei­ther of those lan­guages?
I’ve al­ready done songs in French. In Eng­lish, for the mo­ment, it’s a bit more com­pli­cated.
Even though you’re a rap­per, I’m in­ter­ested in your opin­ion about the whole urban music genre. What do you think about Rosalía?
I’ll sum­marise it all very eas­ily. The other day I was in FNAC in Brus­sels and over the loud­speak­ers there was a song in Cata­lan play­ing. By Rosalía. I didn’t lis­ten to it care­fully, be­cause I tend to be­come a slave to new trends, as I’m sus­cep­ti­ble to mar­ket­ing strate­gies. Some­thing sim­i­lar hap­pened with Game of Thrones, for ex­am­ple. Every­one was watch­ing it ex­cept for me. And now after five years I’ve be­come a big fan. I’m sure I’ll lis­ten to Rosalía with more at­ten­tion in the fu­ture and will be bet­ter able to eval­u­ate it than I can now. But what­ever the case, I’m happy for her. There’s no doubt she’s good at what she does, that she has tal­ent, art, and lin­guis­tic sen­si­bil­ity.
In Cat­alo­nia there is a boom in urban music, such as trap and hip-hop, also in Cata­lan.
Cat­alo­nia has al­ways had a re­ally good hip-hop and urban music scene, bet­ter than in Spain, which yet again be­cause of Cata­lanopho­bia has not had enough sup­port.
Which groups would you pick out?
One of the best groups in Spain is At Ver­saris. In mu­si­cal qual­ity, for the qual­ity of their mes­sage, the qual­ity of their ac­tivism, and their human qual­ity. They brought out two al­bums and then re­tired be­cause they did not get enough sup­port. Among urban music groups in Cata­lan I also like Poor tràmit, Xavi Mata, Senyor Oca. There are re­ally good peo­ple out there. Yet, the same thing al­ways hap­pens. If their songs were in Eng­lish then every­one would lis­ten to them, even if they couldn’t un­der­stand them, and no one would ques­tion the lan­guage they are sung in. But if they’re in Cata­lan then peo­ple say they don’t sound good.
How do you see your fu­ture in the short term?
In the short term, here in Bel­gium.
And in the mid-term how do you think it will be re­solved?
I’m some­one who didn’t have an easy child­hood, who hasn’t had an easy life, and for that rea­son, as a de­fence mech­a­nism, I never look too far ahead, or back, and I’ve al­ways lived in the mo­ment. I think that if I’d stopped at some point to analyse what’s hap­pen­ing to me or what could hap­pen then I’d freeze and wouldn’t be able to keep on going. I do the same thing now. I’m ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in­jus­tice and I don’t think too much about the fu­ture. But if you ask me where I see my­self in a few years, then I have to say, un­for­tu­nately, in Bel­gium.
You can’t see Spain tak­ing a dif­fer­ent tack?
I’d love some­one to show some sense and say: “This has to end. Here we have a 25-year-old who made a song spout­ing a load of non­sense when he was 18. We sen­tenced him to three and a half years in prison be­cause we wanted to make an ex­am­ple of him and it hasn’t worked out for us and now it’s dam­ag­ing Spain’s image in Eu­rope. Is all of this worth it? Let’s give the lad amnesty and move on.”
Would you ask for a par­don?
No. I don’t even con­sider it. If they told me that by ask­ing for a par­don I could go home to­mor­row, I’d say no. This is no longer just an in­di­vid­ual thing about me, it is a col­lec­tive issue. I don’t think I’ve done any­thing wrong. If it was just some­thing that af­fected me then that’s one thing, but there are lots of rap­pers being con­victed or per­se­cuted. My crime was to be on the left; it’s a purely ide­o­log­i­cal mat­ter. The trial in the Na­tional Court was a purely po­lit­i­cal trial. They asked me if I was against Spain, if I wanted to mo­bilise peo­ple, why I sang in Cata­lan, whether I was a friend of the CUP party... They didn’t ask me any­thing about the lyrics, or the al­leged crim­i­nal acts. They wanted to know about my po­lit­i­cal ide­ol­ogy. That’s why I’ve not asked for a par­don. I might ask for for­give­ness for other things, but not for that.
For what things?
I can ask for for­give­ness for my songs being dis­agree­able, I can ask for­give­ness for mak­ing sex­ist or ho­mo­pho­bic com­ments in some songs, which sadly is the norm in hip-hop cul­ture. I can ask for­give­ness from all of those groups I might have of­fended by my ig­no­rance, but I can’t ask for­give­ness from a state that wants to lock me up for mak­ing a song and that wants to make an ex­am­ple of me. If they want me to be an ex­am­ple, I will be one, and won’t ask for for­give­ness.

in­ter­view

in­ter­view

In the court’s hands

The Spanish authorities are still trying to extradite the rapper. Yet, the case is in the hands of the Belgian judiciary, with a Ghent court soon due to make a decision. At the end of 2019, the European Court of Justice’s advocate general pointed out that Spain cannot base its extradition request on a criminal code that came into force after the singer’s alleged offences took place. The Ghent judges originally rejected the extradition request in September, arguing it is a freedom of speech case, but the public prosecutor appealed the ruling, which led the court to ask the ECJ for advice.

A rapper on the run

Valtònyc is the artistic name of rapper Josep Miquel Arenas Beltran (1993), who is from Mallorca. He was arrested in August 2012 and accused of glorifying terrorism, hate speech, inciting violence and slandering the crown in his songs. In February 2017, he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison, a ruling that was ratified by Spain’s Supreme Court a year later. However, the following May, a day before he was to enter prison, Valtònyc absconded to Belgium where he has remained since, fighting his extradition back to Spain.

A land of exiles

Valtònyc is not the only figure who went to Belgium to avoid prosecution in Spain. A number of former Catalan government ministers followed president Carles Puigdemont there after the failed 2017 independence bid. The extradition of Puigdemont and former ministers, Toni Comín, Lluís Puig and Meritxell Serret, are ongoing, as is that of former minister Clara Ponsatí, who later moved to Scotland. Puigdemont and Comín’s extradition cases were suspended by the Belgian judiciary at the beginning of January this year, after the court considered them to have parliamentary immunity as MEPs. Nevertheless, the suspension will be dependent on whether the European Parliament decides to withdraw the immunity or not.

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