I didn’t know who Rosalía was. I’d just hear stuff here and there: “Rosalía yes,” “Rosalía no,” “Rosalía is an appropriator,” “Rosalía is a witch,” “Rosalía is bad”… All the usual stuff you expect when a woman steps into the traditional, deep-rooted side of the most macho Spain. That alone caught my attention, and she was in my head, even though I didn’t really know her. One day, while working in the studio with my Yamaha HS5 monitors—speakers that let you hear sound the way it’s actually reproduced in a professional studio—I realized something I hadn’t noticed before. The quality of these speakers is crucial to understanding what’s happening in a song. If you don’t have good speakers like the Yamaha HS5s, certain details get lost, like this incredibly low bass that in most sound systems just doesn’t come through. That bass is in one or two lower octaves, which changes how you perceive the chords. Without proper speakers, you miss it, but with them, it hits you right away. And I wonder, if a nuance is lost in the sound and your speakers don’t pick it up, does it really belong to the song?
That sub-bass was a clever touch in the production, something only sound enthusiasts like me could appreciate. And that really got me hooked. By the time I finished the song, I knew I was listening to something special, something that was redefining cultural, musical, and social boundaries, and especially, something that was a turning point for women in music. It was the turning point for flamenco, Spanish music, and culture.
It reminded me of what Las Grecas did back in the day when they changed the cultural and musical scene of their time. That same kind of intelligence and boundary-pushing is what I saw in Rosalía. The use of those deep bass tones and sound play made me think, “Wow, this is interesting. Let’s see what else she does.” So, I started reading about her album, but what surprised me was that almost no one was talking about what truly captivated me: the music, the harmonies, the melodies, and the production. And that’s the brilliance of El Mal Querer—how it fuses the traditional with the contemporary, and why I believe Rosalía’s work marks a turning point for flamenco in its most global form.
El Mal Querer isn’t just an album; it’s a conceptual album. That means there’s a narrative that ties all the songs together. It loosely adapts a 14th-century book called Flamenca, written by an anonymous author (who, it’s believed, was likely a woman). The story is about a woman who marries a jealous man who mistreats her and locks her away, but if you didn’t know the book was from the 14th century, it could easily be a modern-day story. And that’s exactly what Rosalía emphasises: whether or not the ways we love, suffer, and survive have changed much over the last thousand years. In El Mal Querer, the female protagonist grows stronger and overcomes the mistreatment in some way, and each song, each chapter, reflects that evolution.
For example, “Malamente,” the song that opens the album and corresponds to “Chapter 1: Omen,” starts with flamenco claps and an electric piano, mixing flamenco and trap into a unique blend. In trap, it’s common to have a repetitive base that runs through the whole song, and in Malamente, that base never stops. It’s a constant, while Rosalía’s voice and the other elements evolve on top. This fusion of genres is not only innovative, but it creates a one-of-a-kind vibe, something we hadn’t seen before in flamenco or pop music. And, of course, the bass, with that deep tone, is what makes it truly special—a production that’s not just heard, but felt.
So while others were focused on the controversies surrounding Rosalía full of patriarchy , I dove into the music and the story she was creating. The production, the harmonies, and the narrative in El Mal Querer are the foundation on which Rosalía has managed to redefine flamenco and turn it into something global—something that goes beyond labels or just mixing genres. The music she creates doesn’t just resonate with our roots, but opens a door to the future, to new possibilities for flamenco, Spanish culture, and especially for women who dare to transform and conquer spaces that once seemed unreachable.
By Elisa