Has a Roman poet from the 1st century influenced Rosalía’s ‘Motomami’?

Six intense years of career in which he has filled stadiums with songs that have become number one. Rosalia has revolutionized the world of music with experiments and risky mixes that have positioned her as the ‘motomami’ of the moment.

A connection of music, art and literature are the foundations that inspire the Catalan artist and that can be seen reflected in her albums. ‘El mal Quiero’ (2018), which was born as the singer’s final degree project, was conceived based on the 13th-century novel ‘Flamenca’. In addition, he has recently been chosen by the critics of Rolling Stone magazine as the tenth best concept album in history.

The story continues. Hispanic philologist Jesús Pacheco (@Jesuspachecoprz on Twitter) launched a new inspiration for Rosalía on this social network. This time in a Roman poet of the 1st century BC. C. for his album ‘Motomami’: “In this short thread I will tell you why Publio Ovidio Nasón was a ‘motomami’ of the Roman Empire”Pacheco begins.

Before beginning with the explanation, the user recalls the relationship of the Catalan with the classics of literature, “singing from San Juan de la Cruz to José Agustín Goytisolo”, he writes. He also mentions the relationship between Catalan and classical art, where he highlights the cover of “Botticelli’s Renaissance-style ‘Motomami’ in ‘The Birth of Venus'”explains the Hispanic philologist.

“Now then: who was Publio Ovidio Nasón and why has he influenced Rosalía and is SO important. Ovid is the author of famous books such as ‘Art of loving’ or ‘The metamorphoses’essential in classical literature and has influenced Garcilaso, Shakespeare, Mozart…”, begins to recount Pacheco.

But where is the influence on Rosalía? Pacheco stands out in first place “the idea of ​​transformation that lies at the core of ‘Motomami'”which appears in the lines of ‘Saoko’: “I am all things, I transform myself, / a butterfly, I transform myself”.

The next connection is the video clip of the song ‘You don’t come out of here’, from the previous album, in which the artist appears going on a motorcycle to an unknown place and later a wolf eats her dinner. “Rosalía goes by motorcycle directly to one of Ovid’s metamorphoses, that of Jupiter and Lycaon. In it, Lycaon offered human meat to Jupiter, who was offended and turned him into a wolf. Rosalía here is Jupiter and the wolf at the table is Licaón,” explains Pacheco.

Despite this, the ‘twitterer’ says that there is a clearer reference to this metamorphosis of Ovid in the song ‘Hentai’. In one of her scenes, Rosalía climbs on a white and brown bull. It is about the “metamorphosis of the abduction of Europa, where Jupiter transforms himself into a white bull to seduce and take Europa, a Phoenician princess, and have a relationship with her”.

The Twitter thread already has hundreds of ‘likes’ and congratulations. A small investigation that, as explained by the author, has started after a university project on literature and art.