After collaborating with the greatest names in the music business, it is fair to say she has become a mega-star in her own right. That’s no other than the GRAMMY, multiple LATIN GRAMMY, and MTV Winner VMW Rosalía.
The last months, she worked with Travis Scott for the song: TKN.
One of her recent collaborations include The Weeknd, with whom she created a remix of his mega-hit Blinding Lights.
And Bad Bunny is no stranger to her collabotive tracks either. But who is that great singer from Barcelona, Spain? And how did her career start? Learn more about Rosalía now.
Rosalía’s breakthrough
On May 29, 2018, Rosalía Vila Tobella released the innovative breakthrough single and captivating video for Malamente (Cap.1: Augurio). Through that song, she unveiled the first full example of her unique musical vision.
The first ‘chapter’ of her final graduate thesis turned into the soon-to-be landmark album “El Mal Querer”.
With a real sense of individual discovery spreading virally, a growing community of impassioned fans was embracing Rosalía’s phenomenal vocal capability.
Her musical talents grew even stronger after her first acoustic album.
Rosalía meshed it with her now fully realized fusion of classic Flamenco training and other timeless music styles of Spain, with R&B, hip-hop, contemporary Latin-American rhythms, and electronic beats.
Coupled with Rosalía’s strong influences from industrial visual arts, female empowerment, fashion, and choreography, the following became clear to critics across subsequent singles Pienso en Tu Mirá and Di Mi Nombre, and the November 2018 album release of El Mal Querer.
… Rosalía is a complicated genius.
… El Mal Querer is a triumph.
… reflecting femininity and strength.
… a boundary-breaking album.
… resonated like a shockwave.
… near-epic proportions.
… stands out from virtually everything else on the global pop landscape.
…. an album this game-changing comes once every decade if we’re lucky.
… a modern visual masterpiece. [from]…the breakout artist of the year.
Best New Artist of 2018
Riding her first two Latin Grammy awards received for Malamente, and “Best Latin Album of the Year (2018)” picks from Billboard, NPR, The Los Angeles Times, and many more, Rosalía plunged into 2019 recording and releasing a new collection of critically-praised singles such as the high-flying Con Altura with J Balvin, Aute Cuture, double-track Milionària & Dio$ No$ Libre Del Dinero, and Yo x Ti, Tu x Mi with Ozuna.
ROSALÍA ON STAGE
As Con Altura quickly raced to occupy the #1 Global Music Video chart slot on YouTube, it also became apparent that an equal factor in Rosalía’s still growing worldwide embrace was her unique and star-making live performances. She demonstrated this in the sold-out limited engagement El Mal Querer Tour, and across the year’s top global summer festivals. These included Coachella, Primavera Sound, Glastonbury, Lollapalooza, and many more.
The reaction to her live performances was best summarized by NME in a FIVE STAR live review declaring:
Rosalía has range. She could pierce holes in your heart with a sullen Catalan ballad or crush it flat with a ferocious R&B arrangement. Each song throbbed with the kind of longing seldom felt in music the masses could dance to… nobody in pop right now does it better.
THE MEDIA EFFECT
Across the Fall of 2019 up until now, Rosalía’s continued artistic growth has met an outpouring of magazine cover visibility. Among these media were Sunday New York Times Magazine, Billboard, ELLE, W, Vogue Spain, FADER.
Moreover, Rosalía gained award recognition. She has continued to receive critical praise that is rarely, if ever, bestowed on such a ground-breaking young musician. This is all the more striking considering she has forgone pressures to pursue an English ‘crossover’.
ROSALÍA’S AWARDS
Rosalia’s fall award season began with the On-Fire three-song medley performance and double Moon Man wins (Con Altura – Best Latin Video & Best Choreography) at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Nevertheless, what represents her unprecedented success even more clearly is her receiving the first-ever BEST NEW ARTIST GRAMMY Nomination for an all-Spanish language artist. Proving her merit, she gave a stunning performance on the 2020 GRAMMY broadcast.
And the Academy could not ignore her talent. She took home the Best Latin Rock, Urban, or Alternative Album GRAMMY Award for “El Mal Querer”.
Rosalía had made similar history on her second visit to the Latin Grammy Awards in November, as she became the first solo female artist in 13 years (since Shakira) to win Album of the Year. The milestone album was the overall top-winning release of the night, bringing her career total to five Latin Grammys.
By the time 2019 came to a close, Con Altura was YouTube’s #2 global video of the year (1.2 BILLION Views), and the world’s most-watched music video by a female lead. The track also appeared in the upper reaches of dozens of Best Songs Of 2019 Critics Lists, including:
GQ (#1)
TIME (#2)
Vulture (#3)
Paper (#4)
Billboard (#5)
Pitchfork (#8)
Entertainment Weekly (#2)
Stereogum (#2)
Remezcla (#2)
Likewise, Rosalía’s innovative EL MAL QUERER album, and recent singles were also added to the Best Music of the Decade lists of Rolling Stone, Billboard, GQ, The LA Times, Pitchfork, Consequence of Sound & More.
ROSALÍA AND THE PANDEMIC
Over the course of 2020’s first six months, Rosalía has been mostly focused on completing work on a wealth of new music while also keeping to stay-at-home guidelines during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ahead of her highly-anticipated next album release, Rosalía has continued to delight fans by unveiling new songs roughly every two months, with this year’s releases consisting of Juro Que, Dolerme, and the quickly viral TKN with Travis Scott- which debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Latin Streaming Songs and Latin Digital Songs charts, while also vaulting into the Billboard Hot 100.
Pictures: © SONY MUSIC
