Rosalía
Rosalia Vila Tobella (born 25 September 1992),[1] known mononymously as Rosalía (Spanish: [rosaˈli.a], Catalan: [ruzəˈli.ə]),[2][3][4] is a Spanish singer, songwriter, producer, and musician.[5][6] Born and raised on the outskirts of Barcelona, she has been described as an "atypical pop star" due to her genre-bending musical styles.[7] After being enthralled by Spanish folk music at age 14, she studied musicology at Catalonia College of Music while also performing at musical bars and weddings.[8]
This article is about the singer. For the saint, see Saint Rosalia. For other uses, see Rosalia (disambiguation).
Rosalía
- Singer
- songwriter
- record producer
- musician
- businesswoman
2013–present
Barcelona, Spain
- Vocals
- piano
- guitar
She completed her studies with honours by virtue of her collaborative cover album with Raül Refree, Los Ángeles (2017), and the baccalaureate project El mal querer (2018). Reimagining flamenco by mixing it with pop and hip hop music, it spawned the singles "Malamente" and "Pienso en tu mirá", which caught the attention of the Spanish general public, and were released to universal critical acclaim.[9] Recipient of the Latin Grammy Award for Album of the Year and listed in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, El mal querer started the ascent of Rosalía into the international music scene.[10][11] Rosalía explored urbano music with her 2019 releases "Con altura" and "Yo x ti, tú x mí", achieving global success.[12][13] She gave reggaeton an experimental twist on her third studio album Motomami (2022), departing from the new flamenco sound of its predecessor. The album caught international attention with its singles "La Fama", "Saoko" and "Despechá" and became the best reviewed album of the year on Metacritic.[14][15]
Throughout her career, Rosalía has accumulated eleven number-one singles in her home country, the most for a local artist. She has also won two Grammy Awards, twelve Latin Grammy Awards (including two Album of the Year wins), four MTV Video Music Awards, an MTV Europe Music Award, three UK Music Video Awards and two Premio Ruido awards, among others. In 2019, Billboard gave her the Rising Star Award for "changing the sound of today's mainstream music with her fresh flamenco-influenced pop",[16] and became the first Spanish-singing act in history to be nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys.[17] She is widely considered one of the most successful and influential Spanish singers of all time.[18][19]
Life and career[edit]
1992–2016: Early life and career beginnings[edit]
Rosalía was born on 25 September 1992 in Sant Cugat del Vallès[20] and raised in Sant Esteve Sesrovires,[21][22] Baix Llobregat, Catalonia. Born in a Catalan-speaking family with no artistic background, she is the youngest daughter of María Pilar Tobella Aguilera, a businesswoman of Catalan descent who runs Suprametal, SA, a family company specialised in metalworks founded by her father Jaume Tobella Bosch (1933-2019). Her father, José Manuel Vila, was born in Cudillero, Asturias, to a Galician father and an Andalusian mother, with one of his grandfathers being Cuban. They separated in 2019.[23] She has an older sister, Pilar "Pili" Vila (born 1989), who works with Rosalía as her stylist and creative director. Rosalía expressed interest in the performing arts at an early age, especially after discovering the discography of Camarón de la Isla. She began her musical education at the Taller de Músics.[24] She did a six-year course at the academy. She began attending class at the Raval school, later transferring to the Superior School of Music of Catalonia.[25] She also autonomously worked as an independent singer at weddings and musical bars, for which she was paid "a little over 80 euros or in exchange for dinner".[8] During that time, Rosalía met many underground Spanish artists who would later succeed such as La Zowi, Yung Beef, Kaydy Cain, Hinds and María Escarmiento.[26]
At 15, she competed on the television show Tú Sí Que Vales, although she was not selected. At 17, she had to undergo vocal cord surgery after tearing one of her vocal cords due to "intense singing practices" and was unable to sing for a year.[27] In 2012, she became the vocalist of Kejaleo, a flamenco music group featuring Jordi Franco, Roger Blavia, Cristo Fontecilla, Diego Cortés and Xavi Turull.[28] They released an album, Alaire, in 2013. That same year, Rosalía professionally worked as a duo with Juan "Chicuelo" Gómez to promote the Blancanieves soundtrack at the 2013 Panama International Film Festival in substitution of Sílvia Pérez Cruz and at the Festival Grec de Barcelona for the contemporary dance work De Carmen.[29] In 2013, she participated in the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) Conference in New York, and was the lead voice in the culmination of the Any Espriu 2014. In 2015, she collaborated with La Fura dels Baus on a show that premiered in Singapore.[30] She was the opening act for flamenco artist Miguel Poveda, accompanied by Alfredo Lagos, at the International Music Festival of Cadaqués, and also at the 2016 Jerez Jazz Festival. She worked with Rocío Márquez on the presentation of her album El Niño, produced by Raül Refree, at Primavera Sound. In 2015, she also worked with clothing brand Desigual and sang the single for their campaign jingle "Last Night Was Eternal". and self-released "Un Millón de Veces" included in the benefit album Tres Guitarras Para el Autismo.[31] At 20, she worked as a flamenco teacher and vocal coach.[32]
In 2016, Rosalía collaborated with Spanish rapper and former boyfriend C. Tangana on "Antes de morirme".[33] The song was a sleeper hit and entered the Spanish Singles Chart in 2018, after the success of Rosalía's newer material. The collaboration received international attention when it was featured on the soundtrack of the first season of the Spanish Netflix show Élite.[34]
Artistry[edit]
Musical style and genres[edit]
Rosalía's music has been described as "challenging" both for her and for the listener.[120] Noted for the conceptuality and constant genre transformation of her albums and singles, Rosalía's music has evolved from folk to the mainstream and avant-pop. As Rosalía has a master's degree in flamenco interpretation, she started her professional career as a full flamenco singer. 2017 saw the release of her debut album Los Ángeles, a folk record in which Rosalía "is posited as the contemporary cantaora who has better understood the current times".[121] The singer has, ever since, been described as "an old soul trapped in a young body" due to the maturity of the genre.[122] After the release of "Malamente" in May 2018, which rose the singer's popularity to a national level, her music was described as a "heavily exciting fusion of flamenco and modern arts". American magazine Pitchfork called the singer's voice "a soft liquid velvet" and wrote that "Malamente consumes the listener with drums and soft synthesizers that drag you to their world completely". After releasing El mal querer later that year, The Guardian gave it a perfect score and stated: "the Catalan singer's potent, smart second album is more complex than any Latin pop currently in the charts".[9] During the three-year droplet era that started with the 2019 release "Con altura", Rosalía's music evolved to a more mainstream urbano field without leaving the flamenco essence that characterizes her artistry.[123] Described by Rolling Stone as "one of the most daring and reckless productions of recent years", Rosalía's 2022 studio album Motomami "redifined mainstream" by taking reggaeton as its main influence and blending it with traditional music of Latin America as well as with other genres such as industrial or jazz.[124] The singer has stated that she listens to a vast catalogue of music specially when she is making a record in the urge to learn about them. Rosalía has cited the 2011 eponymous album by James Blake as one of the most impactful records of her life.
In his El mal querer review, The Guardian's Alexis Petridis wrote: "She can really sing [...] but her voice is audibly rooted in a different musical tradition to the usual styles in which pop vocalists perform. The standard set of tricks (post-Whitney extemporisation overload, sub-Winehouse aged soul, please-compare-me-to-Kate-Bush kooky swooping, etc) are all noticeable by their absence. Instead, her voice is powerful and gutsily emotive: her melismas sound more Middle Eastern than Mariah Carey.[9] Despite her wide vocal range, Rosalía tends to use Auto-Tune aesthetically in songs and live performances.[125]
The songwriting skills of Rosalía have recently been questioned and criticized for being "random" and "kitsch." Generally, her lyrics deal with various topics and contain multiple references to general and pop culture. Those references can also be seen in her visual work, which she considers the "crucial way of communication between the artist and the consumer."[126] Graphic artist Carlota Guerrero is one of the singer's best friends.[127] Rosalía's visual inspiration mainly comes from Spanish tradition and Eastern culture, mainly Japanese. The singer has a wide knowledge of art history, which she translates to the public by constantly recreating religious portraits, contemporary paintings, and movie scenes within her musical projects. She has cited Pedro Almodóvar and Andrei Tarkovsky as her favorite filmmakers, Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void (2009) and Wong Kar-wai's Fallen Angels (1995) as her favorite films, and Jean-Michel Basquiat as her favorite artist.[128][129] Art critic Harold Rosenberg’s writings on action painting also inspire her stage performances.[130]
Rosalía has been accused of cultural appropriation by some Romani people because she adapts Romani customs into her style and draws from the flamenco music tradition, which is often thought to be from Romani people in Andalusia. However, the origin of flamenco music is not known precisely, and it probably fused musical practices from three sources: Moorish, Jewish and Romani cultures. Responding to this criticism, Rosalía said, "music is universal."[131]
Business and ventures[edit]
Products and endorsements[edit]
In November 2018, Rosalía released a limited fashion line in collaboration with Pull&Bear, insipired in the music video for "Malamente".[169] A second limited edition line was released in May 2019.[170] In September 2020, she launched a solidary lipstick collection with MAC Cosmetics, donating 100% of proceeds in support of women, youth and the LGBT community to a MAC-related fund.[171] A second limited eye shadow collection with MAC was released a year later.[172] After starring in an Air Max 2090 commercial, Rosalía teamed up with Nike in March 2021 to design espadrilles-like Air Force 1s, a folkloric compliment manifested in Catalan culture.[173] These, however, were never commercialized.[174] In 2022, Rosalía became a brand ambassador for Skims.[175] In January 2023, she teamed up with Coca-Cola Creations to create a "transformation-flavored" Coke marketed as Move. She released the single "LLYLM" (Lie Like You Love Me) to promote the drink. Later in March she reimagined the interlude "Abcdefg", from her album Motomami, in a commercial for SEAT's Cupra brand.[176] A collaboration between Rosalía and Zara is expected to launch in late 2024.[177]
Infrastructure[edit]
On 12 February 2024, Rosalía's family constitued a new company, Tresmamis SL, settled to "promote, construct, purchase, sale, lease and create the general marketing of all kinds of buildings".[178] Her mother María Pilar Tobella became as its chairperson and CEO.[179] Through Tresmamis SL, Rosalía is expected to build a recording studio complex in the future Cultural District in l'Hospitalet de Llobregat.[180]
