Rosalía used her Ivor Novellos acceptance speech to call for more voices in music who are not “white middle class Europeans”.
The Spanish art pop singer and NME 100 alumnus received the International Songwriter of the Year Award at the ceremony in Grosvenor House in London last night (May 21), six months after the release of her acclaimed fourth studio album ‘Lux’.
Accepting the award, she said she would keep the trophy in her mum’s home, before going on to say that she created ‘Lux’ because she “found the world lacking in tenderness”.
She said the record took three years to make, “despite the well-known and lurking possibility of being erased by others when you cease to feed this insatiable monster better known for all of us as the music industry.”
“Unfortunately, when one tells a story, another can sometimes end up silent. I know there are currently outstanding writers which will not be as recognised as they deserve because they are not middle-class white Europeans whose upbringing has been sufficiently stable for them to turn a hint of talent into a successful career,” she continued.
She espoused the virtues of “daring to find other paths”, before going on to say that we live in a world where “ego and the thirst for power are more widespread than love or compassion, where we tolerate and normalise injustice or inequality, and where we witness in real time wars that seem unending, though they should have never started in the first place, such as ones in Israel and Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Sudan and so many others”.
Sam Fender, who won the Songwriter of the Year award at the same ceremony, expressed similar sentiments in his speech, calling on the UK music industry to seek out more artists from working class backgrounds. CMAT got explicitly political in her own acceptance speech for Best Album, speaking out against fascism and Nigel Farage and calling on other artists not to “sit on the fence”.
The ceremony also saw Thom Yorke debut a new song ‘Space Walk’ before he was honoured with the Academy Fellowship, with an introduction from Harry Styles.
NME gave ‘Lux’ a glowing five-star review, calling it “an arresting album of astonishing scope and ambition”. It added: “Dim the lights, put your phone on Do Not Disturb, turn up the volume and settle in for a truly one-of-a-kind experience.” The record later went in at Number Seven in NME‘s 50 best albums of 2025 rundown.
‘Lux’ track ‘Reliquia’ landed at the same spot on NME‘s 50 best songs of the year list. The cut was hailed as being musically “adventurous”, with its “gorgeous opening string arrangement melting into gently thumping electronic production”.
The North American leg of the ‘Lux’ tour kicks off in Miami on June 4, and in August she will head to Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, with a final date in Puerto Rico on September 3. See the full list of dates here and find any remaining tickets here.
NME was at London’s The O2 earlier this month to catch her show, scoring her another five star review that described it as a “breathtakingly brilliant work of art”.
