A dark, visceral artistry, especially in Spanish tradition, where performance feels possessed by an intimate intensity. It rises from the body and the wound, leaving the listener changed.

Borrowed from Spanish duende, originally “goblin; household spirit,” from a phrase meaning “owner of the house” (dueño de casa), compressed in colloquial speech. The supernatural sense became aesthetic: a spirit not of mischief but of haunting force, invoked most famously to name the inexplicable authority of certain singers and poets.