Rosalía

About

Rosalía is a Spanish singer and songwriter known for redefining the sounds of flamenco, a traditional Spanish art style based on folk music, often fusing it with other music genres. She gained more significant international with her viral song "Despechá", which accumulates 584 million plays on Spotify and 1,9 million videos tagged in the music's TikTok sound. Her song "BIZCOCHITO" inspired the creation of the Rosalía Chewing Gum meme in July 2022.

Career

Rosalía Vila Tobella^[1] was born on September 25th, 1992, in Barcelona. When the Spanish singer was 15, she auditioned for the Spanish singing show Tú Sí Que Vales^[2]. A video showing her participation was uploaded on YouTube^[3] on February 19th, 2020, by user La Sopa News. The post garnered 233,777 plays and 1,100 likes in three years.

The singer released her first album in 2017, titled Los Ángeles^[4], featuring songs inspired by traditional flamenco music. She would get global recognition with the release of the collab song "Con Altura" with J Balvni on March 28th, 2019. The music video^[5] uploaded on her YouTube channel accumulates 2 billion plays and 9,2 million likes in four years.

Her latest album, released on March 18th, 2022, "MOTOMAMI", became a global hit featuring songs like "SAOKO", "La Fama" with The Weeknd and "Despechá"^[6]. The latter garnered 300 million plays and 1,4 million likes on YouTube since being uploaded on August 10th, 2022.

Online History

The Spanish singer has a strong online presence on social media with her unique musical style, way of dressing, visual and conceptual presentation of her work. As of February 2023, Rosalía is the #56 most listened artist in the world on Spotify^[7]. Her latest album, _"MOTOMAMI", got fans posting their reaction on Twitter, like user @mms2k17^[8] shared a meme of Freddie Mercury screaming "SAOKO". The post was uploaded on April 8th, 2022, and received 80,000 likes in a year.

nosotras en el motomami tour pic.twitter.com/VMfQO7Gevh

— memeterapia (imágenes de risas) (@mms2k17) April 18, 2022

Rosalía Chewing Gum

Rosalía Chewing Gum is a viral video of Rosalía walking on stage and chewing gum when performing the song "BIZCOCHITO" during a 2022 concert. The video was captioned in memes multiple times, earning millions of views simultaneously as it sparked discussions on social media. TikTok user @sofi.lesta^[9] shared a video with a cow chewing as the Rosalía music plays out, garnering 76 million plays and 9 million likes in seven months.

Rosalia NextBot Chase (Garry's Mod)

At the end of 2022, videos started to surface on TikTok featuring Rosalía singing "Despechá" in the backrooms NextBot Chase game. @qdqm_^[10] posted a video (below, left) on November 12th, 2022, garnering 10 million plays and 740,000 likes in five months. Another user posted a video of the same game, but with the music "BIZOCHITO" playing. Uploaded by @truencito^[11] on August 17th, 2022, the video (below, right) received 8,8 million plays and 1,2 million likes in seven months.

Personal Life

Forbes announced Rosalía in their list of "Most Influential Spanish Women" in 2020 and 2022^[12]. The singer also has been in a relationship with Puerto Rican singer Rauw Alejandro since 2020^[13].

Cultural Appropriation Allegations

Since her rise to fame in Latin America there's been speculations the Spanish singer is appropiating^[14] some of the musical genres to gain more recnogtion and that she's claiming to be "latina". Twitter user @jharari09^[15] joked about the allegations asking Rosalía to prove she is "latina" by showing a mark on her arm that is common in Latin American countries for a vaccine shot people take at birth. Posted on September 30th, 2020, the tweet garnered 131,300 likes and 11,400 retweets in three years.

si la Rosalía realmente es latina que lo compruebe con esto. pic.twitter.com/YTi3UImPNK

— josecarlos (@jharari09) September 30, 2020

Search Interest

External References