More about: Rosalia

In many ways ROSALÍA is an unlikely star. Certainly on paper not many would have bet on a singer who uses inflections of RnB and electronica to bring flamenco to a wider audience. Or one whose breakthrough album expands on her university dissertation about the 14^th-century Spanish manuscript La Flamenca. Yet ROSALÍA remains one of the biggest exports from Spain in recent years, and after her performance at Brixton’s O2 Academy, it’s easy to see why.

Her name flashes across the screen repeatedly as her six back-up dancers - clad in all white - take their positions to signify the entrance of the Catalan based singer. The crowd is already spilling over with excitement before she even touches the stage, the same sort of reverence saved for either the biggest names in music or the burgeoning cult leaders on the cusp of stardom.

She takes her place amongst the madness; the lights shoot up and she wastes no time showing her impeccable modern take on flamenco, creating exquisite lines whilst she drips with swagger. Demanding attention and showing the utmost confidence, ROSALÍA begins to sing the opening lines ‘PIENSO EN TU MIRÁ’ and the crowd erupts.

She flits from the opening song to her most recent hit ‘A Palé’, combining her gut punch vibrato with fierce dance moves on both. ROSALÍA executes both dancing and impactful singing so well, it’s hard not to see the similarities to another of the upper echelon of performers: Beyoncé. The fans that stay on her throughout most of the show certainly help conjure up that image. But when she demands silence and starts to sing ‘Catalina’ from her first album, a star all her own emerges. The passion and melodrama that fill her vocals are unlike that I’ve ever seen from a performer of her years. Her voice erupts, growling from her stomach, perfectly demonstrating the pain and fury of a woman scorned, each note a gut punch to hear.

Big sing-a-long moments ‘DI MI NOMBRE’ and ‘Milionària’ bring the crowd back to party mode, with latter finding the crowd shouting “fucking money man” over the song that ridicules the capitalist obsession with money. ROSALÍA follows up with ‘Dio$ No$ Libre Del Dinero’, a desperate plea to be freed from that same capitalist obsession.

Her final few songs bring her two biggest hits to date ‘MALAMENTE’ and ‘Con Altura’. As she commands the stage for both, with the audience shouting back the title on the latter and “tra, tra!” on the former, it’s obvious that Rosalia’s future stardom is anything but unlikely.

More about: Rosalia