Lorde Covered Rosalía’s ‘HENTAI’ – & The Internet Can’t Get Over It
From one experimental artist to another, New Zealand singer Lorde just covered Rosalía’s recent single “HENTAI” off her newest album, MOTOMAMI, last night (April 18). The surprise bilingual cover was spontaneously performed at her Radio City Music Hall in New York City as part of Lorde’s Solar Power Tour. What a way to show respect for Rosalía’s newest musical project!
If it’s one thing we’ve missed these last two years over the pandemic, it’s how artists cover each other during their live performances. In this fan-recorded video, we see the “Green Light” singer sitting on the stage’s stairs, emotionally performing the English and Spanish lyrics to the Pharrell Williams-produced “HENTAI,” accompanied by only a piano. In the same clip, the audience cheers even louder once the New Zealand artist sings the edgier lyrics, “Segundo es chingarte / Lo primero e’ Dios.” Will Lorde take this cover and perform it during the rest of her U.S. tour?
Lorde has praised Rosalía’s artistry publicly before, so seeing her cover one of her tracks isn’t something entirely out of the blue. “I’ve listened to the Rosalía album every day since it came out, f*ck, it’s so good, I gagged when I heard that interpolation of ‘Archangel,’ ‘Hentai’ is genius, ‘Sakura’… projects like this remind me why I live for pop music — at its best, there’s nothing better,” Lorde told her fans in an email newsletter, according to Rolling Stone.
It goes without saying that Twitter fans were utterly amazed and elated over the “Royals” singer’s choice to cover this on her setlist.
Rosalía will also be performing at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall later this year on Sept. 18 and 19 during her MOTOMAMI World Tour. The U.S. leg will kick off on Sept. 15 in Boston.
