Ondara

Who is going to appear? Is anyone going to appear? Reasonable questions to consider at the start of a Zoom chat with singer-songwriter J.S. Ondara, as the screen is blank, his camera not turned on. Will this be Ondara himself? Will it be the Spanish Villager — the alter-ego character and “voice” of the new Ondara album, Spanish Villager No: 3? Or will he, either/both of them, choose to stay hidden? It’s a possibility given the photos and videos teasing the album’s release: the artist/character in a white suit imprinted with pages from a newspaper (the “SV Times”), his face obscured, wrapped in a crimson scarf. “Just had to figure out how to operate this thing,” he says, laughing, as he pops on. And yes, the he here is Ondara. The Ondara who journeyed from his home in equatorial Nairobi, Ke...