Megamami

 

The most interesting new artists tend to come from the most unlikely places. Dr. Dre’s NWA hailed from Compton, when all of hip hop was East Coast-based at the time; BTS, arguably the biggest band in the world today, are K-Pop’s (K for Korea) brightest ambassadors; leading electro-pop artist and Michael Jackson doppelgänger Christine and the Queens is French… The same argument works incredibly well when it comes to Rosalía, a Spanish musician born and raised in small town Catalonia and who is now effectively revolutionizing pop music by way of latin pop.

The singer’s second album, 2018’s El Mal Querer, was already an interesting genre bending concept album, and it is precisely what propelled her at the forefront of global pop music. This new and third album, Motomami, released a few weeks ago, follows in the same footsteps — only it goes significantly farther. Designed to display the different sides of the artist, it does just that, and then some. From one song to another — and there are a total of 16, many quite short, but none quite expendable — you get to explore different aspects of Rosalía’s incredibly rich universe, which effortlessly navigates between classic latin-infused flamenco or bachata, then on to pop and electro pop with bits of interestingly experimental music that is effectively unclassifiable.

Songs like “Bulerias”, “Delirio de Grandeza” or the massive lead single “La Fama” (featuring The Weeknd himself) are pretty good at displaying the breadth of what is reductively called latin music today. And the singer manages to intertwine more traditional elements as well as modern reggaeton parts, a courageous endeavour in itself: purists of all kinds could have objected, but none probably will, as the result is quite startling. Same goes with the more pop-sounding tracks, like Neptunes-produced “Hentai” or “Como Un G”, the latter displaying truly remarkable vocals, not that other songs here lack any: this young woman possesses one of the most striking voices we heard in a while, all genres combined. Then you have songs like “Cuuuuuuuuuute” or “G3 N15” which are interesting insofar as you can’t really compare them with anything else out there…

All told, Rosalía’s 2022 offering is one of the most interesting — and risky — mainstream pop albums we heard in quite a while. In an era where pop music tends to be globalized to the point of homogeneity, Motomami is definitely a breath of Fresh air. Fresh latin, Spanish and experimental air…