Rosalía

Lore & Background

Rosalía Vila Tobella was born in 1992 at a hospital in Sant Cugat del Vallès, Catalonia, although she was raised in Sant Esteve Sesrovires, Baix Llobregat. Born to a family with no musical background, she was named after her maternal grandmother Rosalía Aguilera Torres, who was born in Òdena. She is the youngest daughter of María Pilar Tobella Aguilera, who runs Suprametal, SA, a family company specialising in metalworks for windows. Her father, José Manuel Vila, was born in Cudillero, Asturias, to a Galician father from Vigo and a mother from Ávila, with one of his grandfathers being born in Cuba.

Her parents separated in 2019. Rosalía has an older sister, Pilar "Pili" Vila (born 1989), who works with her as her stylist and creative director. Rosalía expressed interest in the performing arts at an early age, especially after discovering the discography of Camarón de la Isla. She began her musical education at the Taller de Músics., where she completed a six-year course.

She then began attending class at the Raval school, later transferring to the Superior School of Music of Catalonia. She graduated in 2017. During this time, she also worked as an independent singer at weddings and musical bars, for which she was paid "a little over 80 euros or in exchange for dinner". During that time, Rosalía met many underground Spanish artists who would later become successful, such as La Zowi, Yung Beef, Kaydy Cain, Hinds and María Escarmiento.

At 15, she competed on the television show Tú Sí Que Vales, although she was not selected. At 17, she had to undergo vocal cord surgery after tearing one of her vocal cords due to "intense singing practices" and was unable to sing for a year. In 2012, she became the vocalist of Kejaleo, a flamenco music group featuring Jordi Franco, Roger Blavia, Cristo Fontecilla, Diego Cortés and Xavi Turull. They released an album, Alaire, in 2013.

That same year, Rosalía professionally worked as a duo with Juan "Chicuelo" Gómez to promote the Blancanieves soundtrack at the 2013 Panama International Film Festival in substitution of Sílvia Pérez Cruz and at the Festival Grec de Barcelona for the contemporary dance work De Carmen. In 2013, she participated in the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) Conference in New York, and was the lead voice in the culmination of the Any Espriu 2014.

Reader's Guide

Rosalía completed her studies with honours by virtue of her debut and collaborative cover album with Raül Refree, Los Ángeles (2017), and her baccalaureate second album El mal querer (2018). Reimagining flamenco by mixing it with pop and hip-hop music, it spawned the singles "Malamente" and "Pienso en tu mirá", which caught the attention of the Spanish public, and were released to critical acclaim. A recipient of the Latin Grammy Award for Album of the Year and listed in Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, El mal querer started the ascent of Rosalía into the international music scene.

Rosalía explored urbano music with her 2019 releases "Con altura" and "Yo x ti, tú x mí", achieving global success. She gave reggaeton an experimental twist on her third studio album Motomami (2022), departing from the new flamenco sound of its predecessor. The album caught international attention with its singles "La Fama", "Saoko", and "Despechá", to become the best reviewed album of the year on Metacritic. Her fourth album Lux (2025) broke several all-time records by a Spanish-speaking female artist and was widely acclaimed by critics for its fusion of art pop and classical elements.

In the course of her career, Rosalía has accumulated thirteen number-ones in her home country, the most for a local female artist. She has also won two Grammy Awards, eleven Latin Grammy Awards (including two Album of the Year wins), a BRIT Award, four MTV Video Music Awards, two MTV Europe Music Awards, three UK Music Video Awards, an Ivor Novello Award and two Premio Ruido awards, among others. In 2019, Billboard gave her the Rising Star Award for "changing the sound of today's mainstream music with her fresh flamenco-influenced pop", and became the first Spanish-singing act in history to be nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys. She is widely considered one of the most successful and influential Spanish singers of all time.