Motomami: The Future of Urban Latino Music

By Abdul Djabbour // Staff Writer

After three years without releasing an album, Rosalía is back to stay.

Motomami is the third album by the Spanish singer Rosalia and was released on March 18, it has 16 songs and singles like Saoko, Chicken Teriyaki, Hentai and Candy. The Motomami album is 42 minutes and 25 seconds long. The album is co-produced by the singer and Noah Goldstein, who collaborated with Kanye West on past works like “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.”

Motomami is an Urban Latino album with a sound as fresh as reggaeton, bachata, flamenco and hip hop that you can enjoy at a bar, at home, or at parties with friends.

With this third album, Rosalia knew how to transition from her second studio album “El mal Querer,” which had a flamenco/pop sound, to an Urban/Latin sound.

The release of this album has generated heated controversies with each advance that she has released: from the visual to the music.

The cover of this album caused controversy and criticism for Rosalia’s nudity on the cover and was censored at the Jimmy Fallon show where Rosalia was as a guest to sing and promote her album.

The controversy grew and the album cover became popular due to censorship in the show and went viral on Tiktok, Instagram and Twitter.

Rosalia explained why her album bears the name of Motomami. “Moto” in Japanese means “harder.” “Mami” refers to the figure of the mother woman, therefore “Motomami” for Rosalía translates to a word that represents women as a power of creation, a creative force by nature.

“Motomami is an energy, that’s how I felt. I had done more most of the songs and I was really thinking what am I going to call this record, what is it going to be called, what is it going to reflect and how honest can one be to do is to collect what is happening. I think that at that time it was this word that had this duality. Moto is the most aggressive side and Mami is the most vulnerable side. There are songs with very aggressive drums and there are more ballad songs and more connected to that place,” Rosalía said.

Motomami definitely shows a Drag/Rebel side of Rosalia where she can do what she wants (Moto) and the other vulnerable and sad side where she sings from the heart (Mami).

Motomami is an album that has been talked about and international critics love it, Meta critics gave it a score of 94/100 and it is the album in Spanish with the best review of this year.

The Telegraph has given it a 100/100 review and they have said that Rosalia is the future of pop.

I think Motomami is an album full of surprises because it has sounds that will make you want to listen to the whole album to see what you can find, the lyrics of the songs are beautiful, danceable and addictive.

Rosalia is becoming an important artist for Latin and international music and experiencing new sounds has played in her favor.

At first people criticized Rosalia for moving away from the flamenco sound of “El Mal Querer,” but now everyone loves “Motomami” for the addictive melodies and the album is a roller coaster of emotions with the production, voice, videos and amazing sounds. This album can lift anyone’s mood because people will want to dance and sing to Motomami’s songs.