On ‘Motomami,’ Rosalía scrambles cultural codes and remakes pop in her own boundless image

You get sense of what Rosalía is as much as throughout her dazzling new album from “Hentai,” a hushed and aching ballad — not less than that’s what it begins out as — that comes a couple of third of the best way by way of the 16-track “Motomami.”

Singing in a excessive, trilling voice that conjures reminiscences of Edith Piaf, the 29-year-old Spanish pop phenom traces a shapely ascending vocal melody over gently ringing piano chords; finally, a swooning string association glints to life behind her, lending the music a type of wistful classic-Hollywood taste.

But the title of “Hentai” refers to a really totally different kind of filmmaking — particularly, porn in Japan’s brightly coloured anime custom — whereas the music’s lyric describes bodily pleasure extra vividly than these delicate sounds have skilled us to count on: “I wanna experience you want I experience my bike,” she sings in Spanish earlier than complimenting part of her lover’s anatomy by imagining it “has a diamond on the tip.”

Simply then a juddering drum-machine beat drills into the manufacturing from out of nowhere, blasting away “Hentai’s” sense of subtle calm although not, crucially, its air of emotional longing. It’s not a bait-and-switch, this music; as an alternative, Rosalía’s concept appears to be that intercourse — even (or particularly) at its hungriest — is worthy of the high-flown remedy that pop music sometimes reserves for love.

“I whipped it till it acquired stiff,” she sings sweetly, drums jackhammering round her as she lays out her priorities in life: “In second place, f—ing you / In first place, God.”

Recorded around the globe (together with in Los Angeles, Barcelona and the Dominican Republic) and that includes collaborations with the Weeknd, Pharrell Williams, Q-Tip, James Blake, her longtime studio associate El Guincho and the trailblazing Puerto Rican producer Tainy, “Motomami” is all about rethinking established cultural boundaries; the LP, Rosalía’s third, brandishes moments of rupture, discord and collision to evoke a contemporary world that questions — but nonetheless seeks consolation in — outdated folkways.

Repeatedly in these gleaming, ice-pick-sharp songs, which mix reggaeton, hip-hop, bachata, R&B and jazz (to call just some of the types at her fingertips), she makes unbelievable connections with little fear over whether or not the seams are displaying; certainly, the seams stands out as the level of her work in an period when assimilation has misplaced its luster as a social superb.

“I contradict myself / I rework,” she sings in Spanish over a buzzing bass line within the album’s punky opener, “Saoko.” “I’m all the things.”

Rosalía broke out in 2018 with the Grammy-winning “El Mal Querer,” which remade flamenco music utilizing digital textures alongside the shape’s historic instruments of acoustic guitar and hand percussion. Within the years following the album’s launch, she performed Coachella and palled round with Kylie Jenner; she appeared in Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” video and recorded songs with J Balvin, Billie Eilish and Travis Scott.

“Motomami” charts that speedy ascent to pop stardom, and never at all times with the guffawing enthusiasm Rosalía shows in her frequent TikTok movies. Within the dramatic “La Fama,” she characterizes fame as “a awful lover” and a “backstabber who comes as simple as she goes”; “Bulerías,” the one monitor right here rooted explicitly in flamenco, recounts the arduous work behind the glamour of movie star: “To maintain standing on my toes,” she sings, “I killed myself 24/7.”

Being separated from her household through the isolation of the pandemic made the journey much more disorienting. Amid the mournful organ tones of “G3 N15,” she addresses a younger relative whose eye shade she will’t bear in mind and one other whose pursuits — “races or house ships or sailboats” — have grown fuzzy in her thoughts. It’s a heartbreaking confession made solely extra poignant by her inclusion of a voice message from her grandmother musing concerning the significance of household.

But when fame has taken a toll on Rosalía’s private life, success has clearly been a creative boon. “Motomami” virtually throbs with the liberty of somebody flush with artistic capital; its stylistic sprawl shares one thing with Beyoncé’s “Lemonade,” whereas the album’s mixture of harsh noise and sculpted pop melody can recall the music M.I.A. made after “Paper Planes” grew to become a left-field hit within the late 2000s.

Within the hypnotic “Sweet,” a couple of breakup with a man who “broke me however just a bit bit,” she threads a pattern from a Burial music (which itself samples a monitor by Ray J) by way of a clattering reggaeton beat. “Rooster Teriyaki” deploys a playground-style chant as she brags about purchasing for “a sequence that’ll break the financial institution like Naomi within the ’90s.” The title minimize, with a springy beat clearly formed partly by Pharrell, is 61 seconds of pure cool-kid swagger; “Cuuuuuuuuuute” reaches towards hyperpop with a wild spray of machine-gun percussion.

“Hentai” isn’t the album’s solely vocal showcase. Rosalía additionally sings the stuffing out of “Delirio de Grandeza,” a canopy of a classic Cuban bolero that she methods out — hey, why not? — with a scratchy Soulja Boy pattern. After which there’s the stripped-down nearer, “Sakura,” through which she imagines herself at 80, trying again with fun at her days as a pop idol.

Not not like M.I.A., to whom she offers a shout-out in “Bulerías,” Rosalía has taken warmth for the way blithely she mixes and matches genres and traditions; the renown she’s acquired as a European lady embracing reggaeton has notably galled some observers. But even flamenco was a discovered artwork for the singer, who’s stated she wasn’t uncovered to the treasured Spanish type till a good friend hipped her to it when she was 13, after which she launched into an intensive decade-long research.

Does “Motomami” reveal her attentiveness to a storied Latin American sound that’s exploded in worldwide recognition since “El Mal Querer”? In fact. However what comes by way of no much less powerfully is her love of reggaeton, two of whose pioneers — Plan B and Tego Calderón — she name-checks on an album suffused with reggaeton’s street-level spirit. (Among the many many different correct nouns dropped by this artist who’s by no means been reluctant to call her inspirations: Kim Kardashian, Lil’ Kim, Mike Dean, Dapper Dan, Willie Colón, Carla Bruni and, uh, Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner.)

Rosalía can be an exceptionally shrewd record-maker: To do her model of bachata, the beloved Dominican fashion, in “La Fama,” she didn’t recruit a confirmed bachata singer however reasonably the Weeknd, whose gentle, imploring voice seems to be good for the music — and whose megastardom helped assure a large viewers for her newest cultural mash-up.

Some will view her technique as fairly wealthy in a music about fame’s soul-depleting properties. Rosalía is OK with the paradox.