After dropping a teaser trailer last week for “La Fama,” Rosalía and The Weeknd have delivered on their promise in spades. The first song off of Rosalía’s Motomami, due out in 2022, “La Fama” arrives with a video that’s both deadly and metaphoric.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen,” actor and taco entrepreneur Danny Trejo says to an opulent club crowd as the video begins. “I want to introduce the following number. But I must warn you, she’s not for everyone. She will pierce your heart and she will be your only obsession! So get ready for some heat… La Fama!”
But this is no ordinary club, this is a decadent cabaret where people snort diamonds and sip gemstone martinis. Rosalía is the titular “La Fama” singing and dancing seductively and setting her crosshairs on The Weeknd, sitting front and center. His high-pitched voice joins her in Spanish as he rises to heed her siren call. They get closer and closer, and just as their lips are about to meet, she kills him.
“I wanted to write, in my own way, a bachata with a little story around ambition,” Rosalía said in a statement. “Taking as a reference the lyrics of Ruben Blades or Patti Smith and the songs of Aventura, I ended up writing a story of romance with fame.”
The video and the song’s lyrics are definitely symbolic of an obsession with stardom, something that both Rosalía and the Weeknd have experienced a lot of. It’s a cautionary tale to the endless thirst traps surrounding the entertainment industry. And as the lights dim, Rosalía poses for applause while The Weekend lays lifeless and Trejo punctuates what we just witnessed: “Don’t forget, be careful what you wish for!”
Watch the video for “La Fama” above.
