Spanish Rapper La Mala Rodriguez to Bring Flamenco-Infused Hip-Hop to Crescent

By Anthony Sandoval Fri., Jul. 6 2012 at 8:00 AM

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As if it weren't bad enough that Spain owns international soccer (or football, as the rest of the world insists on calling it), now it's cutting into our musical turf.

No pues, ¡wow!

While soccer may have gained most of its traction in Europe, hip-hop was born and bred right here in the United States. So it may be a surprise for some to see sexy Spanish rap star La Mala Rodriguez when she struts her stuff while dropping mad verses at the Crescent Ballroom on Sunday, July 8.

In all seriousness, though, it's not a shock to see hip-hop reach across oceans and into other cultures and languages.

For La Mala ("the bad one"), it was an easy choice to make hip-hop her musical conduit. "I suppose I did because it was the language used in my neighborhood," Rodriguez says in an e-mail. "From the start, I was fascinated with breakdancing, graffiti, and rap."

It's yielded some interesting fusions, too, so we might be wont to pay attention.

"Everything from traditional flamenco and jazz artists to North African and Latin-American music, and even American rappers and R&B artists from the '90s influenced me early on," she says.

She's currently touring behind her 2010 breakout album, Dirty Bailarina, which helped net her a Latin Grammy for Best Urban Song for the single "No Pidas Perdón." If the pictures don't tell you anything about her live performances, she describes them with words like: "artistic, richness, feeling, strength and power."