Speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe on Tueday, Rosalía offered an update on her highly anticipated collaboration with Billie Eilish, noting that its completion is “getting quite closer.” She also talked about her love of Frank Ocean, her forthcoming joint track with Travis Scott, and the musical evolution of Kanye West.
Rosalía and Eilish’s long-in-the-works single dates back to a session in March 2019. The flamenco pop artist gushed about Eilish at the time of recording, saying, “She’s an artist with such a strong drive, who knows exactly who she is and what she wants, who pours her soul out when she sings.” Rosalía added, “I’ve been in the studio with a lot of people, but no one has impressed me [the way] she has. She has extreme charisma and extreme passion when she sings.”
Some 12 months later, that collaboration is nearly finished, as Rosalía has been hard at work on it while in quarantine. “During these two last weeks I have been trying to finish the Billie Eilish collab,” she told Zane Lowe. “I think it’s getting quite closer. I think that the arrangements, I think that yesterday I finished the arrangements.”
She continued, “I feel like the production, the sound design is almost done, so I just need Billie to send me the vocals and the ideas that she wants to add because we are there. So Billie … I hope that Billie sends me her thing.” (We do, too.)
Elsewhere in her Apple Music chat, Rosalía called Frank Ocean her “favorite musician.” “He is special I think because not only as a musician and how great he is as a musician, but his vision,” she said.
In 2019, Rosalía appeared on a remix of Travis Scott’s “Highest in the Room”, but there’s apparently plenty more to come from the two artists. According to the Catalan musician, she and Scott were supposed to drop a “super aggressive” single in March, but opted to postpone the release due to the pandemic. She explained,
“I was supposed to release a song for the club, super aggressive, that I’ve been working on for a really long time…. It has, I don’t know, an energy, I think, that is so specific for a certain moment, that I didn’t feel like it was right to release, and I didn’t feel like it was connected with what was going on in the world in that moment.”
The 26-year-old Rosalía also reflected on Kanye’s career thus far. Despite the rapper’s controversial political stances and the lackluster reviews for his recent output, she said she appreciates how he’s changed over time. “I think that you just evolve and I think that your sound and your lyrics has to evolve with you,” Rosalía commented. “And that’s why I really like that Kanye, I really enjoy this chapter in Kanye’s music.”
This year has seen Rosalía release two singles in “Dolerme” and “Juro Que”. She also recently turned in an impressive Austin City Limits performance and scored a Grammy win for El Mal Querer.
Rosalía says Billie Eilish Collaboration is Almost Finished
Lake Schatz
