Rosalia review: You’d be hard-pressed to find a better live singer-Emma Madden-Entertainment – Metro

Roslia was joined on stage by a fleet of perfectly oiled ‘motopapi’ dancers (Picture: Pedro Gomes)

Rosalía is one of music’s greatest living collagists: a textural auteur who appears to fold in every sound and taste, culture and country she’s ever experienced into her own extremely complicated and dynamic universe.

While she established herself as a flamenco fusion artist on her previous two albums, on Motomami, her latest, Rosalía balances flamenco and bachata with reggaeton, dembow and bolero with samba and synthpop, and all with bewildering ease and virtuosity.

It’s a universe of contrast, and one which came roaring into life at her sold-out show at Lisbon’s Altice Arena with pulsating strobes, rumbling motorcycle engines, and a fleet of perfectly oiled ‘motopapi’ dancers.

In line with the album, the performance was kaleidoscopic, veering wildly between traditional ballads and glitched-out, boundary-pushing experiments.

Rosalía appeared before us in motorcycle leather (Picture: Pedro Gomes)

Rosalía appeared before us in motorcycle leather, rascally and boyish (there were no outfit changes), while cameras seamlessly blended into her little arsenal of motopapis, allowing us intimate close-ups of her frenetic facial expressions, which filled the enormous screens behind her.

She filmed herself throughout the night too, smiling wildly and kissing the lens before — in what was the set’s highlight — wetting and cutting her own hair during the James-Blake-featuring track Diablo.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a better live singer. It’s a paralyzingly beautiful voice. Her crystalline melisma seemed to bend space and time as she sang like she was presenting every national anthem to a counsel of devils and gods at the end of the world.

If our fate was put squarely in Rosalía’s hands, there might be a future for us after all. 

At the O2, London, Dec 15 and 16

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