In 2000, Snoop Dog, Ice Cube, Jay-Z and Eminem were releasing albums. Hip hop was a man's thing. Yet. But in Spain, a young Andalusian girl barely 20 years old surprised with a rap album with flamenco flair: Iberian Luxury. Mala Rodríguez had come to change the rules. I have a deal, one of his mythical lyrics, has even sounded in the White House: in 2015, Obama chose it as one of his favorite songs. With her previous album Bruja (2013) she won a Latin Grammy and, seven years later and after several successful singles (such as Mujer bruja con Lola Índigo), the new arrives: simply BAD .
Question. Today urban music is mainstream but 20 years ago it was almost marginal. How was your start in rap?
Reply. Hip hop was a niche, a very small movement and very rare in Spain. When I heard the rappers I went crazy: you could sing as much as you wanted. Although I grew up in Seville with more traditional music, I wanted to rap. And I didn't want to look like what I was hearing, to be a copy. A good example would be Triana: when progressive rock was fashionable and people freaked out with Pink Flyod, they set their own style. Triana is a very big gem. And I wanted to find my sound, my taste, where I come from and who I am ...
P. He did it through a flamenco hip hop. And it sounded good ...
A. Hip hop culture is born out of the New York suburbs in African American and Latino communities. It was the first music played at parties, parallel to graffiti. Music to demonstrate who you are, your style. That is why it is so authentic, it is expressing oneself. But I'm from Seville and it would be very rare for me to imitate those American rappers. What am I going to talk about, from the Bronx? No, from my streets and from what a woman lives. What the guys say is fine but it doesn't touch me. At the concerts I went to there was not a woman except my cousin and my best friend. Still, the boys always respected and accepted me, supported me when they saw that I was looking for my style.
Q. Does it bother you that hip hop is still associated with a particularly macho world?
A. There is more machismo when I pass a taxi rank! Let's locate ourselves, gentlemen ... Rap is not misogynistic, the whole world is macho. You cannot demonize a genre, a cultural movement, which is precisely the opposite. The man lives in a macho culture for a long time. Yes, of course I hear lyrics that I think 'This is not even beaten by his mother'. But in rock, pop or salsa there are also vomiting lyrics.
Q. Do you feel that you opened doors to a new generation of urban artists? Like Lola Indigo, Bad Gyal, La Zowi ...
R. I feel like I finally fit in, that I'm not alone. I was not trying to make way for anyone, I was just trying to survive. The change has been brutal. Now there is a station called 40 Urban!
Q. And what do you think of the Rosalía phenomenon? An attempt was made to create an alleged rivalry between the two.
A. I do not compete with anyone. Rosalía seems great to me. You have taken my full witness. She is in the best moment to be a woman and sing in Spanish, in the best moment of urban music. The formula of mixing Andalusian flamenco and urban vibes had only been made by me. Rosalía has hit, it's a box. I am glad of the success of the whole world, that people do not make trouble. Now, if we are going to talk about flamenco, I prefer María Terremoto. If we talk about the urban and all the stuff: Hello, I know what it does and it's cool. What gives me courage is that this absurd controversy was given more relevance at a time when I released a song, ' Gitanas ', which was very important ...
P. In your records there is always something of social denunciation: machismo, drugs ... What is he rebelling against in this?
A. I have a very long history, it has given me time to go around a lot, think, live, experience a lot. I am still strong. I don't give up. BAD is part of my personal struggle, to seek happiness. Of course, outside there are many injustices and people who suffer ... BAD is a very internal look. Here is the most brazen, flirtatious, introspective Mala ... And they are songs that move because there is passion.
Q. The most honest and tough song is Mommy . Just piano and voice for a ballad about absent mothers ...
R. ' Mommy ' is an interlude. When I make a record I like that there is a harmony, a counterweight. I came from screaming in a song and 'Mommy' appears: a moment of total nudity. It is a terrible song about the absence of a mother because I felt the absence of mine, I missed her very much. In the Seville of the 80s it was very rare to be a single, young mother. My mother had me at 17 years old. She worked hard and was never there. We were both very rare.
Q. And at the age of 12 he already liked rap ...
A. I was very strange, yes. I have experienced things that have reached me deeply. Today it is normal to have an unstructured family. But we were ahead ...
P. MALA sounds more Latin, even reggeaton. And hip hop?
R. There is everything! It is important that the sound is fresh. In 'Bruja' I worked with Steve Lea n [Esteban Correa, a very young urban producer] and I realized that you could use the trap: the sounds agree, it is coherent and contemporary. The message is like a punch. In this album I have worked with people from Turkey, France, the Canary Islands, Mexico ... The Internet brought us a global sound and it is a blessing: it places us all in the same place.
P. Serrat, Luz Casal, Kiko Veneno and, in 2019, the National Prize for Current Music for Mala ... Was it time for hip hop to be recognized?
R. That was the craziest thing that ever happened to me , it made me cry. Before I was not given a ball. And that other colleagues and artists value you means that there are no longer so many barriers.
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