Pitchfork: Do you come from a musical family?

Rosalía: No one in my family plays music. But since I was very little, I would go around the house singing and dancing. And when I was 8, my parents asked me to get up and sing something at a family meal. I had my eyes closed, singing—la la la la la—and when I opened them, the whole family was crying. Everyone. I swear. At the time, I didn’t understand it. But later, with the passage of time, I thought, “I have the power to communicate something, and I’d like to develop that. This is what I want to do with my life.”

Was there a “eureka” moment for you, discovering flamenco?

Yes. Especially with Camarón de la Isla [an iconic flamenco cantaor]. He had a voice like an animal. It was like casting a spell. For me, it was as though it wasn’t possible to sing more honestly, or viscerally, than him.

The way you have described your relationship with your flamenco teacher, El Chiqui, I get the image in my head of the Karate Kid and Mr. Miyagi.

Yes, exactly. The world I grew up in is so instantaneous, so [snaps fingers]. In flamenco, you don’t know anything. Start again. Again. It doesn’t come out. Again. Patience. Patience. Years. Four years and I still don’t know how to sing. Five years, fuck, still not there. And I have to keep going. And it blows my mind, because in flamenco, age is good. The best singers are old. That’s what made me think, “OK. I have my whole life to get better at this, and I will always have something to learn.”

Los Ángeles was rooted in flamenco, but it wasn’t a traditional take on the genre. Were you criticized for it?

Many people said, “This isn’t flamenco.” Maybe it even made them mad. In flamenco, because it’s so strictly codified, there are people that have a very narrow way of looking at it, and if you deviate from that, you’re fucking around with something sacred. To me, you should do things with respect and with love, but there’s nothing that’s untouchable.