After teasing it during her current MOTOMAMI World Tour with a short performance of it, La Rosalía finally released her highly-anticipated merengue-infused pop banger “DESPECHÁ” on July 28. Summer’s not over yet!
With the release, the Spanish singer-songwriter publicly announced the inspirations for her new two minutes and 37-second-track. “There are many ways to be Despechá, in this theme it is from the freeness or the craziness, moving without reservations or regrets,” Rosalía said in a written press statement, according to Pitchfork. “This is the place from where I make music, from where I did it when I first started and where I will continue to until God says so.”
She continued: “I’m grateful for having been able to travel in recent years and have learned from music from other places including the [Dominican Republic], where artists like Fefita la Grande, Juan Luis Guerra, and Omega have inspired me and without them this song would not exist.”
The influences are also cited during the song. Not only does she reference the Dominican merengue legend Fefita La Grande on it (“Voy con la falda, aros y cadena / Piña colada, no tengo pena / Voy con la Fefa, ella es la jefa / Ella lo baila, ella me enseña”), but she also gives a shout out to her Carribean muse by saying “from Barcelona to Santo Domingo.” On top of that, she gives props to Dominican singer-songwriter Omega at the very end.
Despite the initial culture appropriation backlash, it appears that fans are enjoying the track across her social media platforms. A Twitter user said, “Waiting for people to talk about Rosalia appropriating in Despecha even tho she gives a shout out to the original artist but they won’t know bc they don’t speak Spanish.”
Another Twitter user already calls it the “song of the summer.”
There’s no official music video release date yet, but for now, we can continue to enjoy her behind-the-scenes TikTok posts that give us a glimpse of her life on tour.
Listen to “DESPECHÁ” below.
