From her near-naked album cover to the “La Flama” collaboration with The Weeknd, Rosalía is turning up some serious heat in the lead-up to her new album Motomami. Today, she just announced the album’s official release date of March 18th, and dropped a full-on reggaeton banger in “Saoko.”
The track title is a reference to Daddy Yankee and Wisin’s 2004 cut “Saoco,” an early reggaeton jam from two trailblazers in the genre. Rosalia samples their track in “Saoko” and presents it alongside a new music video set to a provocative biker gang of ladies.
“Naming my next track “SAOKO” and sampling Yankee and Wisin for me is the most direct homage I can make to classic reggaeton, a genre that I love and that has been a constant and great inspiration throughout the MOTOMAMI project,” Rosalía said in a translated statement.
The song has a break with a melodic piano giving space before Rosalia’s vocal assault continues. She said she wanted to add jazz touches to a reggaeton track and that the lyrics “revolve around the same concept: transformation. Each and every phrase is an image of transformation. Celebrating transformation, celebrating change. Celebrating that you are always yourself even though you are in constant transformation or even that you are you more than ever at the very moment you are changing.”
Watch the video for “Saoko” above.
Motomami is out 3/18 via Columbia. Pre-order it here.