Sawt Falasteen - Rosalia caps journey from student to star with Barcelona concerts

She has now returned to the city where she honed her craft as a global star with her "Lux" tour.

"Barcelona, I love you madly," she said in Catalan on Monday night, opening the first of four sold-out shows at Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi arena.

The concerts are part of the rollout of her fourth album, “Lux,” a sweeping, spiritual work that does not overlook the flamenco rhythms of her earlier records.

"Thanks for carrying me," the 33-year-old added before breaking into tears as the audience erupted into applause.

The tour which began last month in France will also take her to the United States and Latin America.

Fans packed the arena to see Rosalia, who grew up in the nearby commuter town of Sant Esteve Sesrovires, perform in the city where he first began attracting attention as a student.

"There was already an intention there, a very flamenco way of moving through life -- which is to move with confidence," Luis Cabrera, founder of Taller de Musics, the music school where Rosalia enrolled in 2010, just before she turned 18, told AFP.

- 'Always restless' -

Rosalia, hailed for her genre-defying versatility, studied several subjects at the school, including flamenco singing with her mentor, Chiqui de la Linea.

Cabrera recalled Chiqui saying early on that Rosalia’s voice blended ancient flamenco styles with a strikingly modern sound.

Hard-working and deeply engaged in her studies, she already had a clear sense of direction.

"She used to ask a lot of questions, always restless. And when she said 'I want my music to reach millions of people' I was shocked," Cabrera said with a smile at the school, where photos of Rosalia now decorate the walls.

The "Rosalia effect" has since boosted enrolment in the school’s vocal programme, he added.

That same determination is remembered by music journalist and composer Luis Troquel, who closely followed her early years in Barcelona’s music scene.

"She told me she wanted to be a diva, but not in the distant sense. In the sense of an artist who sings on stage, dances, and pays close attention to image." he said.

"And she achieved that, even better than expected," added Troquel, who worked on the lyrics of one of the songs of Rosalia's 2018 breakthrough album "El mal querer" ("Bad love").

- 'Boldness and self-confidence' -

That album, her second, began taking shape during her time at Catalonia’s main public conservatory for higher music education, Barcelona's ESMUC, where Rosalia completed a degree in flamenco singing.

Like all students, she had to complete a final research project and graduation concert.

Rosalia based her project on "Flamenca", a medieval anonymous novel that inspired "El mal querer", which she later performed as her final graduation recital.

"Everyone still remembers that concert," said ESMUC director general Nuria Sempere, describing Rosalia as a student who was "always focused and had strong family support".

"She had the boldness and self-confidence to take all her influences and present them to the public without any hesitation. That requires a lot of work," Sempere added.

ESMUC offers one place each year to study flamenco singing. Rosalia was awarded the place and now funds a scholarship for future students.

A few years ago, Rosalia returned to the school to give a masterclass on creativity.

"The first piece of advice was this: ‘screw it -- it doesn’t matter, just go for it. You’ll fix it later, but you have to jump in,'" Sempere recalled.

Rosalia did -- and it worked. With two Grammy awards, 11 Latin Grammys and 28 million Instagram followers, she is now impossible to ignore.

"In Spanish music, it’s hard for me to find a phenomenon with the same scale of impact as Rosalia," Troquel said.

X.AbuJaber--SF-PST