Rosalía’s fourth studio album, the divinely affected LUX, unfolds in four parts and 13 languages, with several choirs contributing to the miraculous feat of an avant-garde chart-topper. A sonic scripture of desire and ruin, it accordingly invokes god: Patti Smith.
A 1976 interview recording of Smith closes the flamenco ballad “La Yugular.” In it, Rosalía sings about a love she’d destroy hell for. Smith, whose transcendent bond with the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe was a rich subject of memoir, urges her to aim higher: “Seven heavens? Big deal. I want to see the eighth heaven, tenth heaven, thousandth heaven. The thousandth heaven. You know, it’s like break on through the other side! It’s just like going through one door—one door isn’t enough. A million doors aren’t enough.”
In a recent interview with BBC 6 Music, Rosalía described meeting Smith. “And so basically I remember walking down the stairs. I was wearing this white dress. And I was walking down the stairs, like running kind of like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t want to make Patti Smith wait!’”
The singer continued: “And I just arrive, and she was so…she had so much light in her face in her eyes in her smile and I couldn’t believe…and she just pointed out the dress I remember she said, ‘I love your dress’. And then she talked to me about the song and then we started sharing and it was one of the most beautiful things ever to meet her, because I really admire her.”
Smith forged music history a new form with her 1975 debut album, Horses. Even the story of its first performance reads like a scene from legend: Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Sam Shepherd, and Anne Waldman were reportedly in the audience. Smith is best known for her music and writing, particularly Just Kids (2010), which chronicles her relationship with Mapplethorpe, beginning with their formative years in 1960s New York City and spanning their adventures in Warhol’s Factory.
Smith has also photographed people and places related to her private life, and worked in drawing and mixed-media. She had her first solo exhibition of photography in 2011 at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. “Each photograph is like a diary entry of my life,” Smith said of her practice.
In addition to her spotlight on LUX, Smith also released her newest memoir, Bread of Angels, last week.
