ROSALÍA WAS 16 YEARS OLD, SHE LOST
her voice. She had been singing too much
without proper technique, and she needed a
vocal cord operation. “For a whole year, I was
in rehabilitation, just listening to music,” she
says. “I learned how to really listen.”
The experience was formative for an artist
who has become an international superstar
thanks in part to her attention to detail, from
the intricate sounds of her genre-bending
productions to every shot of her avant-garde
videos. To this day, Rosalía always carries her
“little pad” or her phone, writing down “every-
thing I’m going to do, my ideas, the next step,”
she explains. “The point is to connect with
what made me go into this in the first place.”
We’re chatting in early September over coffee
and scrambled eggs at a suite in the trendy hotel
EAST, Miami, where Rosalía speaks — mostly in
Spanish but with a smattering of English — in
a voice that speeds up when she’s excited but
rarely rises above a murmur. Today, makeup-
free and with her dark curly hair flowing loose
over her shoulders, she looks much younger
than her actual age, 27. Only her
long nails, black and laced with
glitter, give away the diva within.
In the year and a half since
she independently released her
single “Malamente,” earning
immense critical acclaim for
her contemporary, urban-music
twist on flamenco, the Spain-
born Rosalía has turned every
preconception about her country’s
iconic musical tradition on its
head. She’s a trained dancer who
traded heels and long-tailed
dresses for platform sneakers,
midriff-baring tops and sweats;
a traditional cantaora who
collaborates with rappers and
reggaetoneros; a thrilling live
performer who mixes hip-hop
and flamenco moves with military
precision in front of psychedelic
visuals. “Rosalía possesses the
very rare combination of a flawless
artistic vision and remarkable
live performances, and she keeps
pushing every musical boundary,”
says Ron Perry, chairman/CEO of
Columbia Records, which signed
Rosalía in the United States in
- “She’s a once-in-a-generation talent.”
She’s already rubbing shoulders with the
biggest names in the industry. Since her break-
out record, El Mal Querer, debuted at No. 1 on
Billboard’s Latin Pop Albums chart last fall, she
has performed at Coachella and Lollapalooza,
hit the studio with Billie Eilish and Pharrell
Williams, graced President Barack Obama’s
annual summer playlist and won two Latin
Grammys. In August, Rosalía became only
the third female Latin artist to perform at the
MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), after Sha-
kira and Jennifer Lopez.
“There’s no one I can remember who has
come out this fast — in any language,” says
her agent, Samantha Kirby Yoh, WME part-
ner and head of East Coast music. “I don’t
think anyone has the attention she has gotten
in terms of credibility in so many different
genres and mediums.”
Even as recently as three years ago, it would
have been hard to fathom Rosalía’s career
trajectory. With very few exceptions, Latin
artists have garnered mainstream U.S. attention
only after achieving great success in the Span-
ish-speaking world. Typically, major U.S. labels
enter joint-venture deals with their Latin coun-
terparts to work acts who are releasing albums
or singles in English. Rosalía, however, joined
Columbia barely six months after signing with
Sony Music Spain, and she still sings predomi-
nantly in Spanish — not only a sign of increas-
ingly permeable genre and language barriers,
but also of her star power. “She’s bigger than a
Spanish artist. That’s what everyone is drawn
to about her,” says Columbia executive vp/GM
Jenifer Mallory.
Rosalía has spent much of
2019 proving as much, releasing a
string of singles that showcase her
diverse skill set. There’s the J Bal-
vin collaboration “Con Altura,”
an homage to classic reggaeton
that hit No. 12 on Billboard’s Hot
Latin Songs chart; the club-ready
anthem “Aute Cuture,” which she
decks out with a dance-pop edge;
and the hypnotic Ozuna team-up
“Yo x Ti, Tu x Mi,” which the pair
performed at the VMAs. “You
can hum her songs, but they are
complicated and sophisticated
in terms of structure,” says Jody
Gerson, chairman/CEO of Uni-
versal Music Publishing Group,
which announced a worldwide
publishing deal with Rosalía in
June. “It’s a very unique sound
that is all her own.”
Despite widespread acclaim
and internet hype, Rosalía’s music
has yet to hit a mass-market tip-
ping point: None of the aforemen-
tioned singles have broken into
the Billboard Hot 100. At Spotify’s
¡Viva Latino! LIVE concert at Mi-
ami’s AmericanAirlines Arena a few days before
our interview, the mostly Latinx crowd’s reac-
tion to Rosalía was effusive but more curious
than rapturous compared with the reception
they gave others on the lineup, like headliners
Bad Bunny and Nicky Jam. But experts say that
may just be a matter of time, not an issue related
to her appeal. “Interest from mainstream
Latin radio is huge right now for Rosalía,” says
Gabriel Buitrago, founder of Summa Marketing
and Promotions, who is working her singles to
Latin radio. “As a promoter, the hardest thing to
do is work new artists. But I’m amazed at how
quickly they have embraced her.”
As she works on her third album and pre-
pares for more live performances — including
sold-out arena shows in Spain — Rosalía is still
processing how fast her career has moved. “I
can’t walk around like I used to, and there’s
always paparazzi waiting outside the studio,”
she says. “It’s jarring.” Still, she never be-
lieved she would make it this far on her own
terms. “Ten years ago, I thought, ‘Someday,
I may have to make concessions because of
the industry.’ I wish I had known it would be
like this. Everyone around me has maximum
respect for my vision. Everything has been
organic. I’m so happy I can make the music I
want at any moment.”
You have experienced a seismic shift
over the past few months. What’s the big-
gest change?
What has truly changed is the doors that may
open. The possibility of doing many things that
I had in my mind but seemed very far away, like
putting together a show exactly how I picture it
without worrying about infrastructure or any-
thing. When I began to record El Mal Querer,
I didn’t have a label or a team. It was just my
family — my mother and my sister — and my
friends. To be able to work today with Rebeca
[León, her manager] and so many other women
who trust me is amazing.
It seems like every time you write a song,
you’re thinking about it in 3D: the music,
the video, the performance.
For most of the songs, yes, everything is con-
nected. The music is the center, and every-
thing stems from that. I’m a musician first,
but I started from scratch: I would beg to be al-
lowed to play, I would announce my events on
Facebook, I would design my posters. When I
sang in bars and weddings, where you have to
fight to be heard, you gain incredible humility.
I was on top of every detail so the vision would
come to fruition.
Flamenco is not pop — it’s complex music.
What made you realize that visuals could
help tell the story?
As a teenager, I grew up listening to [Spanish
artists like] Lola Flores and Camarón and also
2Pac and Missy Elliott. So the visual landscape
I got from those acts really made an impact on
me and made conceiving visuals a very natural
thing. Even though the cantaora traditionally
sings sitting down, why do I have to do that
in my video? I’m going to turn it around and
conceive a video where I can simply dance in
the streets. My priority always is to project the
image of a strong woman. And when I work
on video edits, I always prioritize attitude and
strength ahead of looking pretty in a shot.
THE TEAM
LABEL
COLUMBIA RECORDS
Ron Perry, chairman/CEO
Jenifer Mallory,
executive vp/GM
Erika Alfredson,
senior vp marketing
MANAGEMENT
LIONFISH
ENTERTAINMENT
Rebeca León, CEO
AGENTS
WME
Samantha Kirby Yoh,
partner/head of
East Coast music
Carlos Abreu, agent
LATIN POWER PLAYERS 2019
48 BILLBOARD • OCTOBER 12, 2019
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