Estrella Morente has once again left a headline about Rosalía, days after stating that the Catalan had “disrespected” her for reducing her contribution to ‘La Rumba del Perdon’ to simple choruses. Although in ‘La Rumba del Perdon’ Morente and Sílvia Pérez Cruz not only sing choruses: their voices are heard clearly and distinctly in the final minute of the song, even with separate lines.
In that interview, Morente already did more rhetorical pirouettes than in the Cirque du Soleil, ensuring that his words were not at all reduced to a “tantrum” – since they seemed very much like it – and insisting that Rosalía had “disrespected” him for leaving most of his contributions off her album. Morente said that “you don’t play with art,” but she turned it into a moral issue, painting creative decisions as if they were personal grievances. All this after Rosalía bothered to invite her to her album.
After her statements for Catalunya Ràdio, La Vanguardia cites another statement by Estrella Morente – probably expressed previously – in which she assures that “what happened with Rosalía is very good, but it is not new, I already experienced it years ago with my father.” Estrella, daughter of Enrique Morente, is no longer filtered and goes directly to taking credit for Rosalía’s success and her artistic merit.
Morente affirms that “I don’t want it to sound disparaging, but what Rosalía is doing is pure Morentian school.” First of all, it is striking that he ignores that “but” is the most revealing word there is. Yes, your words they sound to contempt. But they also contradict each other: first he says that Rosalía’s work is not new and then he compares it with what Enrique Morente did, who mixed genres that already existed previously. Rosalía does the same in another context.
Morente revolutionized flamenco, no one doubts that. But Rosalía too, and she too has created a school: you just have to look at the number of artists who have emerged in recent years following in her footsteps, such as Judeline, CURRO or María José Llergo. Flamenco was already hybridized with a thousand things before, but Rosalía has known how to translate it into the 21st century, breaking down all barriers, integrating it into electronic, Latin or orchestral music. And even if ten artists had mixed exactly these genres before Rosalía, they would not have done it in the same way.
Morente’s words are reminiscent of the criticism that Rosalía received at the beginning of her career. Estrella undervalues her work because, according to her, “it is not new” and because her father supposedly did it before. From this point of view, Rosalía would have had to invent the wheel for her work to have value, as if flamenco were not, in itself, a tradition built from the constant mixing and reinterpretation of styles. By the way, has Morente forgotten that Rosalía released a song called ‘Omega’ two years ago?
Estrella also appeals to the combination of “rock with the sacred” and the use of “different languages” in ‘Lux’ to argue that Rosalía’s work owes its existence to the experiments of Enrique Morente. It seems that, for her, innovation in flamenco comes from her father, as if there had not been other disruptors of flamenco like Morente. Without going any further, Camarón, a crucial influence on Rosalía.
Estrella, then, would have to explain exactly what she means by new or innovative music, if any proposal can be invalidated by tracing her influences to the origin that best suits her. The reality is that Rosalía operates in another industry, with other languages, in another context and for another audience, and that her impact is absolutely mainstream and global. If she doesn’t realize how much of a pioneer Rosalía is – and she’s funny, because she’s on her album – she’s missing out.
