Rosalía exhibits massive potential which is reached on some tracks, but leaves much to be desired on others.
As a reviewer of music, it’d be silly of me to think that the only worthwhile music being made these days is in English. Admittedly, my exposure to music in other languages has been lacking, but I’d like to rectify that. After all, there are some great projects being made in other countries which I’d hate to overlook.
One project which has gotten a lot of attention from music publications comes from Spanish singer/songwriter Rosalía entitled Motomami. My only exposure to her before listening to this album was a feature she did on great Bad Bunny song La Noche de Anoche. She was really great on that track, so I was excited to see what her music is like.
Rosalía has a few tracks where she explores reggaetón, namely tracks like the album opener SAOKO, the fun but wacky CHICKEN TERIYAKI, and the collaborative dance track LA COMBI VERSACE.
SAOKO tackles this idea of transformation, where she says that she’s going to transform like numerous things, most strangely the Lego logo (?). CHICKEN TERIYAKI features her running through some kinda generic flexing with an inane hook and a really repetitive beat. LA COMBI VERSACE is an okay dance track about going out on the town, but it doesn’t do much for me either.
Those three tracks on this project leave much to be desired. She’s not necessarily bad at this style, but I don’t think the style suits her the best on much of the album.
That’s not to say that she can’t perform this style at all. One track which garnered a lot of attention on TikTok is the seventh track BIZCOCHITO. The verses on the track feel like they were written as a response to things men say to her online, as much of it is rejecting the idea of what people see her as. It’s actually really cool and brings a fun attitude to the album.
Unfortunately, the chip-tuned hook on that track gets old really fast. Still, I found her swagger and her flow on the verses of the track refreshing.
She explores more of her singing through the rest of the tracklist, which gives me an opportunity to mention that Rosalía has a gorgeous singing voice. She’s immensely talented in that regard, but I do think there are some moments where she maybe doesn’t use her voice to it’s full potential. The track CANDY, for example, feels like it tries harder to be spacy and artsy than to build to anything substantial. She never sounds bad on the track, but it does feel like she’s holding back to build to a climax which never comes.
I had similar sentiments about her performance on the following track LA FAMA, wherein she joins The Weeknd in lamenting how fame can ruin lives and truly isn’t worth the benefits people think it has. I really enjoyed the beat on this song, but I think the song falls short of it’s potential. We don’t get any interesting vocal or emotional changes from either of the two super talented singers, nor do we get any harmonies which really could have brought the track to another level.
A track I did not have this complaint about was BULERÍAS, a track which functions as a response to critics who claim that Rosalía has left her Flamenco singer roots behind her. She really shows out vocally on this track not only by really flexing the power of her voice, but also by bringing some fun scatting reminiscent of her early days as a cante singer.
Just ignore the really hideous autotune which peaks out near the end out of nowhere.
One song which divided opinion upon the release of the album was the promotional single HENTAI. The song ended up being the subject of an interview with music outlet Genius, where she defended the overtly sexualized lyrics, claiming that she sought to write a Disney style ballad with super sensual words.
From a purely sonic standpoint, the bare instrumental really suits this reserved delivery she has for much of the early stages of the record. She sounds earnest, but I think the tone just falls short of the mark. It never has the tone of a song which carries lyrics full of explicit material. While she defends the song in the Genius interview as having a sense of humor, I think the song doesn’t cross over from being a novelty.
One song which I think succeeds in establishing a sensual tone much better is the title track MOTOMAMI. Clocking in at just over a minute, it has a really fun beat and seems like a much more sensual track.
Personally, my favorite track on the album is actually a cover. Rosalía shows out on the song DELIRIO DE GRANDEZA, which is a cover from old school Puerto Rican artist Justo Betancourt. Interestingly, she leaves the instrumental from the original intact for much of the track, juxtaposing Rosalía’s polished lyrics with the very old sounding horns of Betancourt’s original.
In a very weird move, we get an additional sample in the second half from an unexpected source: Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em.
Soulja Boy appears on a remix of Vistoso Bosses track Delirious; a track which samples the same Justo Betancourt song. Rosalía decides to leave a looped sample of Soulja Boy’s verse in the track. To be honest, I didn’t know how to react to this when I first heard it but after a few listens, it really grew on me. It’s so stupid that its perfect.
LA FAMA ended up being the lead single off of this record. Rosalía would actually cover themes explored on the lead single on two other tracks. The first of these two is DIABLO, wherein a chiptuned voice accuses Rosalía of selling out and becoming unrecognizable, sentiment which also appears somewhat on BULERÍAS. While BULERÍAS addresses accusations of leaving her past behind, DIABLO is much more straight forward in essentially accusing her of becoming a bad person due to being famous.
I’ve complained before about artists releasing a song purely mentioning complaints about them without properly addressing them (looking at you, Machine Gun Kelly). I think the thing that separates other songs from DIABLO is that these are concerns which Rosalía is clearly worried about. She lets this argumentative voice get the last word on this track not necessarily because she agrees that she’s changed, but more because it’s something which she does worry about conceivably happening to her.
I think it’s a really interesting take on this type of song. She seems really earnest on this track and I think it comes across well.
The other track where this idea is addressed is on the album closer SAKURA. This track is reverbed to death because it’s meant to sound like a live performance. I actually didn’t know if it was live or not, but apparently it is recorded in studio with live noise mixed in with it. The reason they went this direction with the last track is because she reflects on the fleeting nature of fame within the music industry.
She talks about how she’s seen fame change people she knew for the worse and says the life of a popstar is short and easily goes away. The title comes from the Japanese term for the cherry blossom, a flower which blooms and withers really quickly. While it’s not the most powerful performance on the record, it’s definitely the most earnest and passionate. It’s a really fitting end to the record.
At the end of listening to this album, I was honestly conflicted. There are a lot of great and interesting moments on this album that I couldn’t recommend enough. However, there’s also some really wacky production choices and some really clunky and awkward writing.
At the end of the day though, I think I’d still recommend this album. Rosalía is a really talented singer and I think she still has a lot of potential as a performer. I don’t know if I’ll be keeping my eyes out for the next project necessarily, but I think this is definitely a worthwhile album. If you’re in a rush, I’d personally recommend BULERÍAS, MOTOMAMI, DIABLO, DELIRIO DE GRANDEZA, and SAKURA.