Rosalía breaks everything with 'Saoko'

Rosalía, in a frame from the video for 'Saoko'.

This morning Rosalía (Sant Esteve de Ses Rovires, 28 years old) has released the second advance of her new album,

which will be released on March 18.

The first single from the album was that almost conventional bachata presented at the end of 2021, less digital and dissonant than desired, entitled

and in which, once again, as usual since

r was left behind, the Catalan shared the limelight with another artist, in this case The Weeknd.

But

daddy,

is something else.

In the theme, Rosalía flies alone and perches on whatever she wants.

The song is the most experimental thing she has ever recorded, the strangest thing since

And maybe the best.

In just two minutes,

explodes over a classic reggaeton beat, but saturated and distorted, with a broken organ that hums, a jazz piano interlude and an overwhelming finale that is a soulful explosion of noise.

Through the song, the Latin appears, but also the crazy experimentation of Arca and that Kanye West who in 2013 launched

and decided that he was going to do something very strange, industrial and psychotic that was going to sell as many records as the most conventional pop productions.

He almost makes it.

Rosalía has picked up that idea, even the winks to

that contained that opus by West, and has sewn them to reggaeton. The result is barbaric.

Saoco

is an African term that became popular in some Latin American territories that means rhythm, joy, movement.

It is also the title of a song by Daddy Yankee and Wisin released in 2004 and to which the Catalan pays homage in the lyrics of this song, which should be less controversial than those four

verses that Rosalía sang to us from a chairlift and that caused the indignation of many, surprisingly, not so much because of the lewdness—that kneeling, as one kneels before God, to perform fellatio—was overlooked—as because of the mixture of languages, the

jargon , the realization that the The world is not going to stop moving and the indignation because it continues to do so when some have already decided to stop.

round more the theme of personal reaffirmation, of the butterfly that transforms. To the relief of those who missed Homeric references in Rosalía's lyrical production, here she gives us a couple of mentions of Troy. And for those who suffered to see her move away from the Hispanic tradition, there are also nods to the Spanish proverb. This coexists with tributes to Kim Kardashian and Vivienne Westwood and with an accent that, when he speaks is his, when he sings it is confirmed as something transatlantic. That is also yours.

In the video of the theme released this Friday at six in the morning, Rosalía and a group of girls do a

on a motorcycle.

Syncopated, nervous and full of memorable images, the

starts with a shot from inside the gas tank of a motorcycle and the Catalan filling it with the hose.

What does not contaminate you, makes you stronger.

It is very likely that, after this song, some will give the Catalan for lost.

But it was not her fault if someone thought at some point that we were dealing with the new Niña Pastori.

It's what it is to be young in a world full of older people who think they are.

It's the thing that, when they don't understand you, they blame you for not explaining.

It is what you have to have to explain things to people to whom you were not saying anything either.

Rosalia has left.

And it's very likely that in a few years she'll come back, she'll pick up a little guitar and start out por bulerías.

We can sit down and wait for her, with a kind of empty nest syndrome because the girl has been unruly, or we can follow her and enjoy the trip with her.

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