The story of Bebe: a debut album selling over 1 million copies, the anthem 'Malo', a Latin Grammy and her mother's advice that became a tour — the Spanish singer returns to Argentina after 8 years

When she released 'Pafuera Telarañas' in 2004, María Nieves Rebolledo Vila, known as Bebe, had no idea how big it would get. Her debut album sold over a million copies worldwide, won the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist and turned 'Malo' into an anthem against the physical and psychological abuse of women. Fame, she recalls, was 'so sudden that there was no order to anything'. Back then, her parents came to her early shows 'in case the police showed up'.

Now the Spanish singer is on a Latin American tour devoted to that very album, revisiting the songs one by one. The original idea was a single anniversary show, but when a tour was offered, her mother persuaded her: 'I think you owe it to yourself to sing them again and enjoy them the way you didn't back then.' Bebe says she makes every decision in conversation with her family, which she calls 'the von Trapp family' because they are always singing together, and that her teenage daughter, Candela, 'comes and goes' from that world naturally.

On 'Malo', she is blunt: 'It's not that I have anything against 'Malo': I owe it everything, it changed my life.' But she admits that when she makes a new album she'll want to sing the new songs, and the track might even be left off the setlist. 'When I started, I had more prejudices about myself, more modesty. I've shaken all that off,' she says, arguing that prejudices in music 'limit you'.

Her bond with Argentina goes back a long way. Bebe grew up listening to Alberto Cortez, whose songs her father sang at home, and made her Buenos Aires debut in the mid-2000s with a show at the club Niceto. After eight years without playing the city, she performs as a trio on October 15 at Teatro Ópera, and is already praising the local crowd, which she calls 'super hot'.