‘Linda’, a Pretty Pop Track With Ugly Implications
ROSALÍA performing at Bilbao BBK LIVE, 2019. Image Credit: Iñaki Espejo-Saavedra on Flickr.
An infectious reggaetón beat infused with flamenco-style palmas. A memorable, catchy hook laced with provocative playfulness. This is the recipe that propelled the collaboration between Tokischa and ROSALÍA to international success. Their track seamlessly blends Dominican and Spanish musical influences, offering a fresh kind of cultural exchange, while cheekily celebrating the joys of female friendship through the lively lyricism made memorable by the energetic delivery of both artists.
At first blush, Linda is the perfect party track. The ideal light-hearted, sexy soundtrack to a night out dancing. But perhaps this song is symptomatic of darker, concerning trends in popular culture. On further analysis into the lyrical content, the track records of the artists, and understanding the historical context of cultural hybridity in the Spanish speaking world, the sweet fusion song soon sours.
ROSALÍA: CREATIVE CHAMELEON OR CULTURE VULTURE?
Where to start? How about the countless controversies ROSALÍA has faced surrounding cultural appropriation? From the beginning of her career, with the release of her raw, stripped-back album of haunting flamenco ballads, Los Angeles, the Barcelona singer has profited off groups who have historically faced major discrimination at the hands of the Spanish. ROSALÍA came under fire for co-opting the profitable aesthetic and sounds of gitano culture without giving due credit to those who inspired her music. Rather, she repackaged said inspiration in a pseudo-authentic wrapping, marketing herself as a humble Spanish youth wishing to share her culture with the world.
Only it wasn’t her culture. Although flamenco is not strictly owned by anyone, it was created by the Andalusian Roma in the south of Spain, a group who still face discrimination and persecution. Purists argue that a catalana like ROSALÍA can only offer an illegitimate and inauthentic performance due to the cultural disconnect present between the north and south of Spain, especially between historically opposed ethnic groups. ROSALÍA’s detractors include the outspoken gitana activist Noelia Cortés, who in 2017 published this statement on Twitter:
(Being gitana is not an aesthetic. If what you sing was sung by a gitana, it would not be the same people listening to it on their phones. You with your expensive clothes and your nails and your things create a false aesthetic that connects itself to gitano culture, but without the racial factors and the consequences that come with these.)
Supporters of the singer will justify her borrowing of flamenco by expressing her music’s impact on growing international interest in Spanish art and culture. But must this promotion of culture be facilitated through a catalana in cultural drag? It is fair to praise the impact of ROSALÍA on the global music industry. However, the origin of her artistic inspiration must be made clear so that the depiction of Spanish culture spread by her success is not misinformed.
LA REGUETONERA DE BARCELONA
This is unfortunately not where her cultural controversy ends. After finding a following for her modern take on gitano music, the Spanish artist took her next step towards stardom through reggaetón. Like her ancestors, she saw the profitable, fertile soil that lay across the Atlantic, only this time the sprouting success that attracted her was a musical one. This reference to the colonial terror at the heart of Spanish history is made in partial jest, however one cannot help but see a correlation between the cultural theft for profit of then and now. This one is non-violent, and arguably more insidious due to its seemingly innocuous nature. After all, can’t we just enjoy music without thinking too hard about it? Is there any real harm in borrowing from other cultures?
GROWING UP LATINO: A QUESTION OF CULTURAL REPRESENTATION
Back at the start of 2019, ROSALÍA appeared in a Billboard interview as part of the “Growing up Latino” series. In the video she states that although she is from Spain, she “feel[s] Latina” and feels at home in countries like Mexico. As one might imagine, the top comments were overwhelmingly critical of both her and Billboard for making the video. Some of these comments include: “I can’t believe this colonizer just said she feels Latina”; “Girl, you’re not Latina. You’re Spanish. You have always had white European privileges. It’s not okay to use the Latin card when it suits you!!”. Given the bloody history of Spanish and Latin American relations, as well as the very real discrimination Latinos face in Spain today, it can feel like a kick in the teeth for these minority groups to be represented by a white Spaniard who simply “feels” Latina, without facing any of the hardships that come with this identity.
This disparity between artistic identity and cultural and racial reality can be seen, or heard, clearly in the difference between ROSALÍA’s spoken and sung Spanish. When speaking Spanish, her accent reflects her relatively privileged, small-town upbringing in the outskirts of Barcelona. She speaks like a typical northern pija. However, this changes dramatically when she is performing. In her earlier music, which was more heavily inspired by flamenco, she sings with a faux Andalusian accent, mimicking the style of the gitanos who birthed the genre. Then, as she moves towards reggaetón, including in her performance on Linda, she adopts a Dominican accent, once more imitating the genre’s originators.
Again, the words of Cortés capture common sentiment: “si no creyera estar robando nada, pronunciaría con su acento natural, no se disfrazaría de algo que en su habla normal no es ni por asomo.”. So, when reviewing this song as a successful fusion of Dominican and Spanish culture, ROSALÍA’s forced accent and borrowed palmas seem to render it hollow and superficial. Her references to Andalusian bulería and arroz con habichuela as well as her home city of Barcelona, all while doing her best dominicana impression is a cultural mix in and of itself. Perhaps the track would be a better blend of influences if the artist could authentically represent one culture- preferably her own- rather than incessantly imitating others.
MALE GRATIFICATION IN THE GUISE OF FEMALE EMPOWERMENT
On top of the cultural controversies that lie under the surface of this catchy dance track, the lyrical content presents an issue of its own. Rather than provocatively presenting the joys of female bonds, the track’s sexually charged lyrics unfortunately perpetuate the sexualisation of female friendships and the consequential trivialisation of female romantic bonds. This is nothing new to pop music or the media as a whole. Capitalising on the profitability of non-threatening queer aesthetics has been the rage long before “I kissed a girl” by Katy Perry. The sexualised depiction of same sex attraction in these tracks is non-threatening to a mainstream audience due to the marketability of female objectification, as well as the implicit centring of male sexual desire.
This is why the hook of Linda “no’ besamo’ pero somo’ homie’” strikes me as harmful. Defenders of the track will argue that it is just some light-hearted fun, showing the physical affection often present in female platonic bonds, and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. However, one cannot help but see it as a ‘sexually empowered’ female repackaging of ‘no homo’. Tokischa, who openly identifies as bisexual, has said that these lyrics do not necessarily imply homosexuality. She claims it is normal for straight women to find their female friends pretty and to want to kiss them, and that the song is meant for everyone.
An arguably weak explanation of the lyrics, which perhaps confirms that this is another convenient co-opting of the hollow aesthetics of a marginalised group in the chase for profit. But perhaps the impact matters more than the intent here. Maybe this track will inspire women everywhere to be sexually free and will allow them to openly engage in more intimate forms of affection with the friends they hold dear. Or maybe these lyrics will ossify the already popular perception of same sex attraction between women as purely being a medium through which straight women can perform an alluring and scandalous fantasy that will gratify male desires.
But, why does any of this matter? Should we bother to understand the messages of songs like Linda or simply enjoy the beat? I would argue that one can, and perhaps should, do both. Social awareness and the enjoyment of content are not mutually exclusive, and if one wishes to engage with the media one consumes in any meaningful way, it is not only possible, but imperative, to be able to critically analyse the art, and the artists, one enjoys. So next time you listen to a catchy song claiming to empower women, or you see an artist selling themselves as the voice of a culture, perhaps you might think twice about the veracity of these claims. And, of course, you can digest this food for thought whilst dancing to the music with your friends. Whether you kiss them or not is up to you.