Rosalía premiered ‘Omega’, her new single, at Piromusical, the fireworks event of La Mercè, Barcelona’s biggest festival. ‘Omega’ was then uploaded to streaming platforms on Vila Tobella’s birthday, today, September 25. ‘Omega’ is a collaboration between Rosalía and Ciudad Real native Ralphie Choo, currently number 1 album in Spain, and its evocation – intentional or not – of Enrique Morente and Lagartija Nick’s masterpiece is limited to its title.
In fact, acoustic guitars form the main accompaniment of ‘Omega’, to which Rosalía and Juan Casado add subtle and decorative arrangements of clapping and auto-tuned voices. In a kind of new ‘Hentai’, Rosalía combines love and sex in an acoustic tune with a nice chorus, in which she rhymes “I’ve become sentimental / before making you finish.” Ralphie Choo gets even more sentimental, comparing himself to Celine Dion, although he also says he is a “tiger.” Stay with whoever is both.
‘Omega’ is a composition worthy of Rosalía’s most romantic side, to which is added the layer of reference to ‘Omega’, the album, which Rosalía uses to express that the person she loves is always the destination to which she returns, her beginning and end. But ‘Omega’ is also nothing more than a curious anecdote in her career. Not even its authors seem to give it much importance, given the cover. As a birthday present for Rosalía, it is a beautiful gesture.
«Omega is the end, it is the celebration of having found what you wanted so much and the security with which one loves that makes you not want to be anywhere else but there», explains Rosalía in a press release. «It is a pleasure to share with Ralphie, he is a whirlwind of energy in the studio. We sent each other many songs before really getting down to making ours because we are both very music lovers and I quickly realized that our musical tastes are very similar. My intuition told me that we would understand each other for sure in the studio and so it was! I remember that we laughed a lot while we were composing and while we were filming the video, in fact if Ralphie called me tomorrow I would go back to spend the afternoon in an amusement park with him without blinking. Personally, I feel very grateful to have been able to collaborate with someone like Ralphie and to witness his passion and his great talent in music».
Charging …This Saturday, Vila Tobella had used her official WhatsApp channel to tease a new song. In her last message, sent last Sunday, she shared a 21-second audio of her singing a cappella a love lyric: «You and I lost among poppies / Your eyes shine, they are two pistols / Tongues embrace, they are no longer alone / In memory you have shot me». This verse has turned out to be the first of the lyrics of ‘Omega’.
The title of ‘Omega’ and the electric guitar teaser pointed to a very clear influence from ‘Omega’, Enrique Morente and Lagartija Nick’s 1995 masterpiece. A fundamental work in the recent evolution of flamenco due to its union with indie, which has influenced groups such as Los Planetas. Rosalía and Ralphie are two artists who have updated flamenco, in their own way. Finally, the concept of ‘Omega’ is used, in the duo of Rosalía and Ralphie Choo, from a personal and romantic point of view, with no apparent connection to the aforementioned album. «You are my Omega,» sings Rosalía.
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There were no guitars to be heard in Rosalía’s WhatsApp audio, but the singer had hinted at the influence of ‘Omega’ in one of her latest Instagram posts, sharing a photograph of a sheet of notebook paper with the ‘omega’ symbol drawn on it. As if that weren’t enough, a black electric guitar appeared in the same image. In the caption of the post, Rosalía added five emojis that spell out the word ‘Omega’.
Imagine this with an electric guitar melody 🫢
— motomochi (@motomochi_rdddd) September 23, 2024
About ‘Omega’, about Rosalía and about flamenco, JENESAISPOP has recently spoken with Soleá Morente, daughter of Enrique Morente and author of great albums such as ‘Ole Lorelei’ (2018), in the latest installment of the podcast Something changed.
Rosalía currently has a hit on the global charts, ‘New Woman’, a collaboration with Thai singer LISA, a member of BLACKPINK. Meanwhile, Ralphie Choo has just scored his first number 1 album in Spain thanks to the vinyl release of ‘Supernova’.
