Rosalía Wins WSJ Innovator Honour in New York

Rosalía received the WSJ Innovator prize for music at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on Thursday, October 29, at a ceremony that turned, in part, into a moment of public grief for Spain. The Spanish singer took the podium in the evening and spoke in Spanish about the train crash in her home country the previous day, sending condolences to the people affected by the accident and offering support to each person touched by it. The remarks, reported by Billboard, set the tone for an awards night that had been planned as a celebration of creative work across music, film, fashion, literature, technology, comedy and sport.

The crash happened on Wednesday morning, October 28, on the high-speed line between Madrid and Seville, near Urda in Toledo province. A Renfe train travelling from Madrid struck the rear of a stationary Iryo train, according to reports of the incident, and several carriages came off the tracks. The Renfe train carried 397 passengers, while the Iryo train carried 147 people. At least 69 people were killed, and Spain began three days of national mourning on Thursday. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez promised a full investigation into the crash and said safety measures would be strengthened. The accident was the second serious rail crash in Spain this year, after a January crash near Adamuz in Córdoba province killed 46 people.

Rosalía, whose full name is Rosalía Vila Tobella, comes from Catalonia. She is known for blending traditional flamenco with modern pop, reggaeton and electronic music, a mix that has shaped her recordings and her live performances over the past decade. At the New York ceremony, she wore a black Schiaparelli jacket with curved openings down the front, paired with a white floor-length skirt, according to fashion coverage of the evening. The outfit drew attention in photographs from the event, but the speech about the crash drew wider coverage in the hours that followed, as outlets in Spain and elsewhere carried her remarks.

The other honourees and the guest list

The awards, now in their sixteenth year, recognise creative achievement across different industries. This year, the magazine honoured seven people in total. Amy Poehler was honoured for comedy, Martin McDonagh for film, Matthieu Blazy for fashion, Demis Hassabis for technology, Marlon James for literature, and the Savannah Bananas for sport, alongside Rosalía for music. Sarah Ball, the editor-in-chief of the magazine, said in a statement that the honourees had changed their fields and, by extension, wider culture. Each honouree is also set to receive a cover of the magazine's November issue.

Guests at the Museum of Modern Art included Dua Lipa, Cara Delevingne, Ciara, Russell Wilson, Lupita Nyong'o, A$AP Rocky, Irina Shayk, Jordyn Woods, Emmy Rossum, Ashley Graham and Gayle King. Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky attended, along with designers Christian Louboutin, Jason Wu and Joseph Altuzarra. The breadth of the guest list reflected the range of the awards, which were launched in 2011 to recognise work in fashion, art, literature, entertainment, architecture, design, technology, music, philanthropy and cuisine. The ceremony has become a fixture on the New York cultural calendar, bringing together figures who rarely appear at the same event.

For Rosalía, the prize arrived days after she collected multiple prizes at the Billboard Latin Music Awards, including the Billboard Hall of Fame Award, according to Billboard. That run of recognition followed a year in which she had already won the BRIT Award for International Artist of the Year and the International Songwriter of the Year honour at the Ivor Novello Awards. She also performed as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in October, playing songs from her latest album, and earlier in the month she released a duet with the Irish band Fontaines D.C., a band that had not previously invited an outside collaborator onto one of its songs.

A year built around LUX

The album behind much of that attention is LUX, her fourth studio album, released last November. The record gave Rosalía her first Billboard 200 top 10, debuting at No. 4, and it features songs in 13 languages. It also reached No. 1 on five Billboard charts, including Top Latin Albums, Top Latin Pop Albums, Classical Albums, Classical Crossover and World Albums. The range of languages and styles on the record was noted in coverage of its release, and it set up a touring and awards period that has continued through this year.

The New York prize does not change the facts facing Spain in the days after the crash. Investigators are still working to establish exactly what happened on the line near Urda, and families of victims are still waiting for confirmed information about relatives. The transport minister, Óscar Puente, has spoken publicly about the authorisation given to the Renfe train to continue its journey, and about the stationary train ahead of it. Questions about signalling, maintenance and investment in the rail network have followed both crashes this year, and the government faces those questions in the weeks before a general election scheduled for late November.

Rosalía's appearance in New York placed a Spanish artist at the centre of an international cultural event on a day when Spain was mourning. Her speech kept the focus on the victims and their families rather than on her own prize, and that choice was the part of the evening most widely repeated after the ceremony. Guests left the museum into a New York night once the covers had been announced. Back in Spain, the mourning period was still in force, investigators were still at work, and authorities and the organisations victims had belonged to were still confirming names. Sources for this article include Billboard's report on Rosalía's speech and coverage of the ceremony guest list, with further detail from the magazine's announcement of the honourees.