On June 10, Rosana will return to a stage in Barcelona after eight years. And she will do it in style: inaugurating the Blaumarí Music Fest, kicking off her new tour Vamos a Star Tour and celebrating that, on the same day of the concert, her first album "Lunas Rotas" turns 30 years old since its release.
With that eternal smile that characterizes her so much and a warmth so human that it transcends any phone, the Canary Islands singer-songwriter sits down to chat with us. She comes with open arms to talk about music, about embracing the stages again and, above all, about OMOW (Otro Mundo, Our World), the social and artistic project to which she has dedicated the last seven years of her life.
— Rosana, welcome back to Barcelona. This June starts with very strong triple emotions: you are inaugurating the Blaumarí Music Fest, it is the first concert of your new tour and it has been eight years since you last performed on a stage in our city. How do you imagine that moment when the lights come on, you reconnect with the people and the music starts to play?
I imagine it as a magical moment, truly, something very, very special. The reunion with the Barcelona audience is always exciting, but after eight years... imagine how much I want to look people in the eyes and reunite through songs. It's going to be pure magic.
— If we look at the calendar, the day chosen for your return could not be more symbolic. And it is that on June 10, exactly 30 years will have passed since the release of Lunas Rotas, the album that changed your life. How do you emotionally manage to go on stage that night knowing that you are celebrating such a special anniversary?
It's going to be a night completely full of emotions, one of those that stay etched in your soul forever and that are not erased even with the years. That my return to the stages in Barcelona coincides exactly, day by day, with the 30th anniversary of Lunas Rotas... look, that's not a coincidence, that's a wink from destiny, from the universe or from life, which is very wise.
I look back and I still get excited like a child with that album that surprised me so much, that changed my life from top to bottom, that gave me the opportunity to reach so many hearts and that, in the end, has brought me so beautifully to this day. It's not just celebrating three decades of music, it's celebrating three decades of love, of songs and of complicity. It's going to be unforgettable!
— The album of that Talismán marked an entire generation who learned your songs by heart. How have those songs fared over time? When you rehearse them now for your concerts, do you feel them differently from how they were born three decades ago?
The truth is no, I don't feel them different at all. I feel them exactly the same, because music has that magical thing: if someone at home listens to a song again, it's as if it's reborn again at that instant, with the same force as the first day. Something beautiful happens to me in rehearsals and live shows, and that is that I find children of 4 or 5 years old singing "A fuego lento" at the top of their lungs... and I'm amazed! To see that these songs transcend generations and are still alive is incredible...
— With your first album you sold millions of copies, won the Ondas award and, suddenly, two of your songs ended up in Quentin Tarantino films. Looking back, how did that girl from Lanzarote assimilate such massive and sudden success?
(Laughter) Well, I assimilated it very naturally, actually! The truth is that I never thought about dedicating myself to the world of performance, that is, getting on stage myself. I felt that my role in music was behind the scenes, working as a composer or as a musician for others, but not as a performer. When I released the first album and all that colossal success came, since I had no idea how it worked, I saw it as something natural. In fact, I remember perfectly the first interview I ever had; they asked me exactly that, if I thought everything I was achieving so quickly was normal. And I, so calm and innocent, told the journalist: "Yes, of course." Then my team and I laughed a lot remembering it! But for me it was natural because it was my first time, I had nothing to compare it to.
"I felt that my role was behind the scenes, as a composer."
— The tour that starts in Barcelona is called Vamos a Star Tour and is the presentation of OMOW (Otro Mundo, Our World). People were wondering where you were, and it turns out you were building an entire universe. Can you tell us what it consists of?
Of course! People would tell me on the street: "Rosana, but have you retired from music?", and I would think: but it's quite the opposite! I was deep in the guts of this. For me, OMOW is the meaning of my 30-year career; everything I have sung and lived has brought me here. I've been shaping this universe for seven years because I felt that music had to take another step, that it couldn't just stay on a stage. We have to get into people's lives! And to open the doors of this "Other World," we have created three precious keys that activate everything.
The first key we have called Más que Barrios (More than Neighborhoods) and it is born from the earth, from my roots, inspired by something beautiful that we already sowed in the neighborhoods of my Lanzarote. The idea is not to go to a place, sing, and leave. It is a process, it is staying there, in the everyday, using music, painting, and art as tools to unite, to include everyone and play together. It is the part of OMOW that is most connected to real life, to true listening, to looking each other in the face every day and saying: "here we are, we are part of the same thing."
Then comes the second key, which is the Gira de experiencias (Experience Tour). We want to do something super intimate, very personal, very authentic. The idea is to get together with followers, with young people who are studying music, with creators, or with anyone who wants to share. We are going to watch the docuseries together but in a very special way... I will be the hostess, the one who opens the door of my house, and we will sit down to converse, to listen to each other, to inspire each other. A free space to experience art from within. And the third key, which is the Gira de Misiones (Missions Tour), is the most mysterious because we are going to discover it together, little by little. With it, we want to completely break the barrier of the show. I don't want you to come to see a closed format. I want to open calls, launch actions that unite art with a very clear social purpose, where people get involved and participate.
In the end, my life, these three keys are for the same thing: to show that OMOW is not something that is looked at from the outside like a shop window, but a universe that has to be lived, felt, and breathed from within. That's what we're going to start in Barcelona!
— Within this ecosystem is the docuseries Mejor vivir sin miedo (Better to live without fear), where you completely bare yourself in three chapters to tell your life philosophy. Does it make you dizzy to stand in front of the camera to relive your story in public or, as the documentary is titled, have you managed to live it "without fear"?
No, it doesn't make me dizzy at all, because for me it's a face-to-face encounter, direct and without intermediaries. I'm not afraid or worried at all about people knowing me as I am; in fact, quite the opposite! I want them to know how I am, I want to communicate from the truth. I firmly believe that my role in this world goes far beyond just being a singer or an artist.
— You have sung with music legends, you have made an anthem for the Football World Cup, you have traveled all over the planet... but when one hears you speak, it seems that you are still the same girl whose father gave her a guitar at the age of five. How do you manage to keep your feet on the ground and not forget where you come from?
Well, by remembering, precisely, where you come from. Remembering who your parents are, your siblings, your lifelong friends, your loves... That's what sustains you. Sometimes you hear that you have to make an effort to "bring out your inner child." Well, the opposite happens to me! They tell me that what I have to do is bring out my "outer adult" (laughs), because that girl from Lanzarote always lives with me, she has never left.
— For many of your fans, listening to you live on June 10 will be like reuniting with an old friend. For those who are still thinking about it, what special ingredient will the concert at Blaumarí have?
It will have three very special, unforgettable, and very simple ingredients: me, you... and us.
Thirty years after that Lunas Rotas that changed everything, the essence of the girl from Lanzarote remains the same. The interview ends, but the feeling of warmth lingers in the air. Next June 10, Barcelona will witness the reunion with an old friend who returns home with open arms and an entire universe, that of OMOW, to share. Because that's Rosana: a whirlwind of optimism that knows no distances or barriers.