There was a time when, for Rosa López, being able to sit on a bench quietly and devour pipes for five minutes was a real luxury. His participation and victory in the first edition of the Operación Triunfo music contest in 2001 and the subsequent Eurovision experience turned the Granada artist into a phenomenon. She turned 21 years old in the program and it was Alejo Stivel from the jury who one day named her Rosa de , not knowing that this label would never leave her again.
Undoubtedly, many things have happened in Rosa’s life during these two decades. The singer, now 42, experienced a veritable emotional tsunami with an intense early years in the industry, and a more recent career in which she has made a shift in her thinking, leaving behind that insecure and full of complexes we met on television.
To begin with, when she remembers the whirlwind of those early years, the Granada performer is the first to self-criticize: “Of course there were people who took advantage of the moment or the innocence, but the one who closed the most doors was myself, because ignorance of things”, he admits in a talk for La Vanguardia. Rosa López knows that, for many years, the main saboteur of her life, and even of her professional career, was herself. “The easiest thing is to blame someone else, and the most mature thing is, even if it is not your fault, to try to solve what is happening. I try to be happy and positive in my life, and I think that with this attitude you are already helping others”, he reaffirms.
A lot has changed since, despite the fact that he started singing at just 13 years old, he made the media leap thanks to television and became part of a sector he was completely unaware of. It was a time when record companies and other agents were fighting to have Rosa in their ranks. The landscape today is also very different for her, to the point where she is an independent artist working for herself, without any company behind her. Of course, the Andalusian has his own guardian angels: “I have managed to have an incredible team that has made my career re-emerge”, he confesses.
One of these pillars is her boyfriend, Iñaki GarcÃa, whom she met during a concert and with whom she has been in a solid relationship for more than three years. “We both feel complete and share fullness. I am very much in love, and not from the perspective of 15 years old, but it is a beautiful love that I had never experienced”, admits Rosa for this medium.
Together they make a good team, and he has been a key piece for the self-esteem of an artist who, since 2019, has been preparing her ninth studio album that will be released in the coming weeks. It will be titled 1930, just like the last single he has released on the market, a song with which he wants to pay tribute to the Danish artist Lili Elbe who, precisely this year, underwent a sex change operation, one of the pioneers in taking this step.
The track doesn’t have an official video as of now and the story behind it is a bit raw. López claims in the interview that he contacted many brands to try to finance his audiovisual work, but surprisingly he found many doors closed due to the theme of the song or because they did not want problems of a political nature with the col· transsexual school The singer even denounces insults and attacks of homophobia, but she is clear that this has given her the strength to push the project forward, to the point that 1930 will be her own personal brand, with part of the merchandising, and will give her name to the tour and on the disc. After more than two decades in the music sector, Rosa is clear that she chose her path well: “I don’t live on applause, it’s not even an economic issue; for me, music is something that goes further”, she expresses excitedly. And she doesn’t mind continuing to be Rosa de España because she knows that the essence remains the same, even though something has changed in her look. This time he doesn’t take it down in front of anyone.
