Bilal Qureshi

Everybody wants to eventually make it in the States.

And I think some of these artists are forced into some of their antics because of that.

I think, unfortunately, it feels to me like Tyla is a bit stuck in some kind of weird 90s R&B netherworld that doesn't make a lot of sense.

She's been in that water for a long time.

Can I just add that, like, Rosalia then follows the problematic presentation of Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz into American culture, too.

Both Spaniards.

who also were kind of presented as sort of raven-haired Latinos, because we've got Mr. Zorro himself.

And I would say that, you know, in a lot of ways, also Spaniards do have, let's not forget, 800 years of Arab-North African mixing and intercultural mixing that produced Iberia.

I mean, flamenco comes with its roots in the Middle East and India, so a lot of what's going on musically is quite connected to sort of a whole other kind of music that Spain is part of.

I just think, you know, to me, I'm not saying this to forgive Rosalia or to dismiss the context that we're talking about, but it's hard for me sometimes to be always thinking about the context when you put on your headphones or listen to one of her albums because it's a completely immersive, incredible music experience.

But she's not chomping on the gum in her nun era.

She's gone to church, Brittany.

I wanted to just add, Brittany, to your question that I saw Motomami, the tour for it in Los Angeles in a predominantly Latino audience in L.A., which is, of course, you know, basically you could argue one of the capitals of Latino culture in the U.S.

And also at the listening event in New York, it was mostly people speaking Spanish.

It's not an ethnic group to be a Spanish speaker, but it's a way of being connected to people around an identity, around a language, which is the other group that you can think of as like Arabs, for example, are connected by speaking Arabic.

Like that's the connecting sort of tissue of that identity.

And so many different communities within that fall under that camp.

And I would say that similarly, like to me, a lot of the audiences that relate to her or love listening to her is because they probably just really enjoy hearing music in Spanish because she sings in Spanish.

And that is such a core part.

part of just enjoying music lyrically, and the lyrics are interesting and playful, whether she's rhyming some Spanish word with teriyaki or sakura or whatever it might be.