Anyone who follows the mainstream pop culture will agree Rosalía stole the spotlight in 2022. Fans were the first to have their moment. Her spectacular, genre-bending album Motomami dropped in March after much anticipation, climbed on almost every critic’s list of the year’s best albums, and justifiably hit many of the global top music charts.
Haters got their moment as well. Her debut performance on SNL—unconventional for the show but absolutely magnificent—earlier this year was followed by internet hate comments, which I thought were blatantly mean and narrow-minded. One Twitter user described her Marc Jacobs outfit as “[…] brought to you by Bed Bath & Beyond.” I mean, seriously?
Even the Millennials and the Gen Z, and likely even the Gen X, who had no idea who Rosalía was must have seen, at some point this year, a TikTok or Instagram reel featuring her song “Bizcochito”. Once the song became a thing, in a classic meta moment of social media, it became a way for others who didn’t understand why it was a thing to make fun of themselves for not being able to understand why it was a thing.
I absolutely loved everything about her presence this year. Even eight months after it dropped, Motomami is still on repeat in my Spotify feed. I really enjoyed watching the evolution of her unconventional aesthetic on Instagram. And I continue to be amazed by how talented and hard-working yet completely genuine she is. Just watching her interviews is enough to see this.
I guess, on some level, I loved that she stole the spotlight this year because I felt that I understood it. I loved the music. I felt connected to the current culture. I got it. It was therefore only natural when she announced San Francisco as one of her stops on the new global tour that I would be there. I knew the new live show would be unlike anything else I’ve seen before, but I was confident I would love it and rave about it.
On October 4, my friends and I showed up early at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium to get good spots near the stage. I did not expect that four hours later I would be leaving the concert and thinking: I… didn’t love it?
Rosalía was spectacular as usual, but my feelings about the actual show were mixed. I was confused why she had a “camera motopapi” on the stage and why she sang into the camera instead of the audience for a good chunk of the show. I didn’t understand why the concert felt more like a TikTok reel rather than a real live show. I was annoyed by the fact that almost everyone had their phones up the entire time, even putting up stationary selfie sticks, to record the show. And why did she only have one outfit for the entirety of the two-and-a-half-hour show? Why was there not a little bit more pizazz?
I came back home and concluded that maybe I was actually disappointed. But something felt off about my evaluation. When I don’t like a show, I am vocal about it. I get annoyed that I paid for an expensive ticket to see an artist who doesn’t put an effort to put on a good show. And I never think about the show again.
With Rosalía’s show, it’s all I could think about for the next few days. The concert was not bad, but it felt weird. And not the usual weird, like the type of weird Lady Gaga will put on but it will still be theatrical, meticulous, and high-brow. Rosalía’s show was at the same time theatrical and unassuming, meticulous and chaotic, high-brow and unsophisticated.
For the first time, in all these years of going to concerts and following hot-off-the-press pop culture, I realized that I was doing what I’ve always berated others for doing: sticking to their preferences and not even considering a different point of view. Even though we’re the same age, Rosalía was miles ahead in her perception of what is timely, relevant, and relatable for audiences today. Meanwhile, I was that person, the Millennial falling behind and getting bitter over the fact that things are no longer how they used to be. With that new sense of awareness, I then slowly started to reconstruct my feelings about the show.
Is there a rule that there needs to be a stage with a theatrical performer, carefully curated dancers, and no camera guys? Sure, the show did resemble a TikTok reel but that in itself was art. Rosalía was essentially a content creator for those two and half hours, recording herself sing to us as we all recorded her record herself. After three full years of pandemic-induced focus on our digital selves, how meta is that?
And, who says that a performer needs to have multiple outfits in one show? Sure, she did sport only one look, but that’s exactly what Motomami is about: being minimalist, stripped to the core, with just one but incredibly powerful tool in one’s arsenal: the voice. And with her voice, Rosalía sang and we all felt it.
Sure, people were definitely mounting selfie sticks to record the entire concert, but I had to admit to myself that it was no different from me being “polite” and just slightly raising my phone to record “short snippets” of the show.
The show was certainly a bit of an unnatural experience for me. It challenged me. But that’s what’s so great about Rosalía: she brings together people from all walks of life—from your regular-nightlife club-goers to elitist music connoisseurs—and challenges everyone to be a motomami and a motopapi. To be their genuine selves but to also consider a different point of view.
There was one particular moment in the show that I won’t forget. After finishing “TKN”, Rosalía sat on one of the stage props, as her dancers took turns to dance to a studio mix of Lorna’s famous “Papi Chulo” and probably the even more famous Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina”. She joined them shortly, dancing and singing “dame más gasolina” along with the audience. The whole scene struck me as unusual because, just a moment ago, we were watching her play the piano and sing about hentai.
Looking back, I now realize what a significant cultural moment that was. In the same night, the Millennial-slash-Gen-Z crowd was going equally ecstatic over a famous 2000s club reggaeton hit and a cute Disney-like song about anime porn. Twenty years ago, in the world in which we existed then, this would not have been a thing. The Daddy Yankee crowd would not have been anywhere near the hentai crowd.
But, in 2022, in the age of Motomami, we live in Rosalía’s world. And in her world, Rosalía challenges us, forcing different crowds to coexist.
And what a great world that is to live in.
Cover photo courtesy of Xavi Torrent. Follow him on Instagram as well.