Rosalía in the Wild

Back in the studio and filming a role on Euphoria, the Spanish diva is rewriting the rules-again.

- BY SUZY EXPOSITO PHOTOGRAPHED BY INEZ & VINOODH STYLED BY ALEX WHITE

One Wednesday morning in June, Rosalía decided to start her day with a pensive walk in the woods.

She ambled up the steep trail at the Carretera de les Aigües—Barcelona’s answer to Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills—and peered out into the distance toward Sant Esteve Sesrovires, the Catalan town where she grew up. She slipped on a pair of headphones and listened to The Smiths’ compilation album, Louder Than Bombs.

As she recalls the scene to me now, she mimics Morrissey’s yearning croons, in the supple vibrato of her own voice. Lifting her manicured hand, exulting in the melodrama of it all, she sings, “Please, please, please let me get what I want...this time.”

This is how we start our conversation inside Pècora, a chic, minimalist coffee shop in the seaside neighborhood of Poblenou that has opened just for us. Rosalía is sitting with her back to the windows—so that potential customers would squint at the Closed sign and overlook the country’s most game-changing pop star on the other side of the glass. She’s wearing a floor-length Gimaguas dress in baby blue plaid, revealing Dior biker boots when she crosses her legs. Her long curls cascade around her shoulders when she leans in to talk.

“The rhythm of everything is so fast, so frenetic,” says Rosalía, who turns 33 in September. “And I think, ‘My God, it’s been eight years since I released my first work.’ That’s insane to me.”

When we meet, it seems as though Rosalía is pushing her way through a creative impasse. Her forthcoming album, the followup to 2022’s Grammy-winning Motomami, is yet to be completed. “What is time?” she says, laughing. “That’s so relative! So there’s always a deadline and, well, the deadline can always change.”