Lorde Covers Rosalía’s ‘Hentai’ at New York City Concert
The music world has been obsessed with Rosalía recently, but Lorde may be her number one fan. After revealing she listens to Rosalía’s Motomami album every day, Lorde covered a song from the album at her recent Radio City Music Hall concert in New York, NY. Once videos started circulating on social media, fans posted enthusiastic reactions to the beautiful cover.
Lorde sings ‘Hentai’ for an enthusiastic crowd
On April 18, Lorde performed night one of her Solar Power tour at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. She postponed dates in DC and Connecticut days earlier due to laryngitis. Lorde seemed in fine form performing 20 original songs and a short but thrilling cover of Rosalía’s “Hentai.”
Lorde broke into the ballad between belting out “Big Star” and “Liability.” Earlier this year, Lorde gushed about Rosalía’s album, Motomami. Preferring to communicate with fans via her newsletter, UPROXX reported Lorde shared her love for Rosalía’s third album.
“I’ve listened to the Rosalía album every day since it came out,” she wrote. “F***, it’s so good, I gagged when I heard that interpolation of “Archangel,” “Hentai” is genius, “Sakura”… projects like this remind me why I live for pop music — at its best, there’s nothing better.”
Who is Rosalía?
Rosalía may be new to some audiences, but the 28-year-old Spanish singer is a Grammy winner for Latin Album of the Year. Her experimental 2018 album El Mal Querer helped propel Rosalía into superstardom. Rosalía wrote the album as her graduation project for the Catalonia College of Music. A star was born after gaining distribution through a deal with Sony music.
Her third album Motomami has been universally praised by critics and fans. The lead single, “La Fama,” features The Weeknd. Throughout the 16 songs, Rosalía flexes her musical muscles with a diverse set of sounds.
When Pitchfork reviewed Motomami, they wrote about the song Lorde chose to cover during her concert. “The unexpectedly dirty “Hentai,” an intimate ballad named after triple-X manga, in which she coos about riding her man’s “pistola” with all the dainty aplomb of Audrey Hepburn doing “Moon River.”
In summarizing the album, Pitchfork said of the entire project, “The Spanish superstar’s third album is a showcase for Rosalía’s exceptional range. It aspires to stretch itself out across genres, play with form, and attain exactly what it aims to achieve.”
Fan says, ‘I have now watched the video 400,000 times’
Lorde and Rosalía’s fans were thrilled to see Lorde sing ‘Hentai” on Monday night. On a Reddit thread where someone posted a video of the performance, one fan wrote, “I have now watched the video 400,000….I’m obsessed.”
Another fan shared their excitement, “She mentioned how much she liked it in her newsletter but I didn’t think she’d cover it. The Rosalía and Lorde super fans in me are FLIPPINGGGGG.”
Radio station RAC105 shared a video of the collaboration on Twitter. They encouraged fans to “Retweet for a Lorde Rosalía collaboration.”
Even Rosalía posted a reaction on her personal Instagram account. She posted a video on her Instagram story and wrote, “Lorde que bonitaaaaaa” which translates to “Lorde how beautiful.”
Like Lorde, Rosalía will play two nights at the historic Radio City Music Hall during her 46 date Motomami world tour. A true international star, the tour will take Rosalía to 15 countries. She kicks things off in Spain on July 6, 2022, and will wrap things up in Paris, France, on Dec. 18.
