Manny King John
Rosalía joins Zane Lowe via FaceTime on Apple Music to talk about how she’s handling quarantine and missing family, her upcoming collaboration with Billie Eilish, why Frank Ocean is her favorite artist, her thoughts on Kanye’s evolution, almost releasing a club track with Travis Scott, and why she loves Pop music.
On Frank Ocean’s influence on artists: …to say that Frank Ocean didn’t influence you is a lie. He influenced a generation.
On her upcoming collab with Billie Eilish: “Yesterday I finished the arrangements. The production and sound design is almost done, so I just need Billie to send me the vocals and the ideas they want to add”.
Rosalía Tells Apple Music About How She’s Handling Quarantine and Missing Family…
I feel blessed that I’m at home safe because I’m far from home. I’m in Miami, and my family is in Barcelona, and I miss them so much. I miss having my mom. I miss spending time with my sister, and I cannot, but it’s okay because they are safe, and I can call them every day. I’m FaceTiming them every day, so thank God we are all safe. I think that when you cannot do something it also is when you want to do it, right? Now that we cannot leave the house is when maybe you feel like you want to do it the most, which is crazy, but as a musician I feel like we spend a lot of time isolated studying music or producing or recording. We do it a lot, but at the same time I miss being on stage. I miss being in the street talking to my friends. I don’t need to be with a lot of people, surrounded by a lot of people doing the crazy plans. I need the simple things like being always surrounded by the people that I really, really love. That’s something that is so basic for me, so I feel like if I don’t have that I feel like I’m less grounded. At the same time that if I’m not making music I don’t feel grounded. So there are basic things in my life that if I don’t have it.
Rosalía Tells Apple Music About Her Favorite Artist, Frank Ocean…
I think he’s so special when he does songs as minimal and emotional as that. I love that there’s so much space for the emotion, and I feel like also the way the pocket that he has is crazy. He is special I think because not only as a musician and how great he is as a musician, but his vision. I think that he has always vision and the sound design and the performance are amazing like everything. I think he’s super complete and special. Yeah, he’s my favorite musician. He’s amazing. I think every musician that is connected with the moment that we are living to say that Frank Ocean didn’t influence you I think is a lie. It would be just a lie. I think that he influenced my generation for sure. But I think in my case I would say that it’s just as simple as I want to make music. So in order to make music I need to spend time doing that. I need to spend quality time making music and spending time to keep studying, listening records, or playing instruments, or just singing and just writing. So I think that I don’t want to spend time in things that are not that because that’s my priority. So I try to do as much as possible to keep my energy making music, as simple as that.
Rosalía Tells Apple Music About Getting Close To Finishing Her Collaboration With Billie Eilish…
I feel like even there’s a lot of energy and things. I feel like there’s so many things going on it’s hard to focus, but at the same time I feel blessed that I’m at home, that I’m safe, and that I can make music and I have all this time that you’re saying. I have this little studio, this little setup that I did here in one room. I have the basics like just the midi keyboard, the computer, just with the mic, and I do my basics and try to do all the vocal production for the next record. I’m working on that on the next record. And I’m trying to finish. During these two last weeks I have been trying to finish the Billie Eilish collab.I think it’s getting quite closer. I think that the arrangements, I think that yesterday I finished the arrangements. I feel like the production, the sound design is almost done, so I just need that Billie maybe sends the vocals and they send me the ideas that they want to add because we are there. So Billie … I hope that Billie send me her thing.
Rosalía Tells Apple Music Her Thoughts on Kanye West’s Evolution and Why She’s Enjoying This Chapter…
I think that this is so interesting, that shift in Kanye West’s career, and I really believe in artists that they just, while they grow as a person, while they grow and they don’t have 20 years, they have maybe 40, their music changed too and their sound changed too. And I think that the smartest thing is to evolve constantly, to evolve, evolve, evolve. If you are in your 40s, your point of view about life is just different. You can be more reckless when you’re younger. You can be more selfish, you can be more of a narcissist, because youth allows a little bit of that. But at the same time, when you are older, I think that you just evolve and I think that your sound and your lyrics has to evolve with you. And that’s why I really like that Kanye, I really enjoy this chapter in Kanye’s music.
Rosalía Tells Apple Music About Almost Releasing a Club Song With Travis Scott in March…
I was supposed to release a song with him last month. I was supposed to release a song that I think is for the club, super aggressive, that I’ve been working on for a really long time. I was like, “This song is so aggressive and is so” … It has, I don’t know, an energy, I think, that is so specific for a certain moment, that I didn’t feel like it was right to release, and I didn’t feel like it was connected with what was going on in the world in that moment. I was really worried about, “Okay, what’s my next … What am I going to do? Because I’m in Miami, but my family’s in Spain. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the world. What’s going on? I don’t understand.” I was getting almost.. I was worried. I was like a little bit sad, and I was not feeling it. I decided to stop everything. I stopped everything. I tell everybody, “No. I need to release something different. I need to release something else, another song. This is not the” … Yeah, not the time. Not the time, and not feeling … You know what I mean? So I decided to work on a song that I was working on months, months, months ago that I started with Frank Dukes from our Frank Dukes sample. I was just two weeks quarantined, two weeks working at home, back and forth, in distance with Frank Dukes, and I finished Dolerme. I decided to release Dolerme, but I want to release the Travis song, because we worked on this song, that it feels kind of … I had a lot of fun with him in studio, and I love his energy. I love working with him. But I think that he’s very creative, too, and he gives a lot. I think that artists in general, we all want to be in constant dialogue with other artists, in order to keep creating.
Rosalía Tells Apple Music About Being Inspired By Classical Music…
I think because I studied in college, I studied music, so when I was studying Flamenco, I was studying this traditional music. But at the same time, I was surrounded by so many other musicians that they were studying Bach and Chopin. I was walking on the hallways of my college and I was always hearing classical music. So, I think that that inspired me a lot. I was always very curious. I was asking, “What’s that? What’s that?” And I got really inspired with all this classic pieces and especially Bach. I choose Bach a lot because I love the bass line, how it moves. I love the chords. The chord progressions are crazy and it’s always very inspiring for me to write songs and to find new colors from the songs.
Rosalía Tells Apple Music About Her Love of Church Music…
I really like church music. I really like the Kanye West put light on it in this moment, but I always loved it during my entire life. I used to sing in a choir just a little bit for a few years. I really connect with it. I think that there’s nothing more pure than voices and people. The communion and people surrounded by other people using their voices, I feel like you can really connect. It’s something very human, very spiritual, at the same time. And that’s why I choose the songs. I feel like they are all connected. They are talking about the same but different moments on history. But they are talking all about the same in a different way. I don’t really think as you say, into any religion in particular, where I think that the ritual of going to a place to connect with something that is above, I think that it’s very interesting and beautiful.
Rosalía Tells Apple Music About Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby” and Her Love of Pop Music…
I love that hook. I love that hook. When I hear that hook, I feel like why I didn’t write that. Yes, I’m jealous. I feel like, oh, it’s so good. It’s so good. When pop music is great, it’s really great. It just fulfills you. I feel like that song is great. It’s just a great song. I love pop music. I grew up listening to pop music. I grew up listening to Estopada. It’s a classic from Spain, but at the same time, I love Frank Sinatra. I love Britney Spears. I love Beyonce. I love Rihanna. I love, I don’t know, Simon and Garfunkel or, I don’t know, like Popcaan. I mean, I love everything. I love Bach. I love all kinds of music. I just love it. So I don’t like when there’s a prejudice of, oh, pop music, eh, pop is, nah. Pop is, when it’s good, it’s good. I think that it doesn’t matter which genre you are talking about. I think it’s about artists. It’s the approach. It’s how you do it. It’s not what you do but how you do it.
