Rosalía, 'Elle' USA cover girl for summer 2020

The singer, 26, from San Esteban de Sasroviras (Barcelona province) is the subject of a multi-page central spread and has been dubbed 'artist of the summer 2020'.

Her face will be on the shelves in newsagencies for the next three months, next to the title of the interview she gives inside: “The healing power of music.”

Resplendent in red and with glittery silver nail polish, Rosalía's cover picture was taken by top fashion and lifestyle photographer Zoey Grossman, who also took the shot of Dua Lipa featured on the front page of an earlier edition of Elle USA.

Los Angeles-based editors refer to the Spanish flamenco-hip hop singer as 'the emerging pop artist of the moment'.

A Grammy nominee and the first Spanish woman ever to win an MTV Award, sought out by Alicia Keys to help with her Spanish pronunciation for her single with Pedro Chapó and Farruko, and whom British actor and comedian James Corden famously said he wanted to feature on his The Late Late Show, as well as having launched her own clothing range for the cut-price streetwear store Pull&Bear, Rosalía went from being a final-year Flamenco Studies degree student whom few had heard of besides her brief appearances at arts festivals to a household name on both sides of the pond and in three languages – Spanish, catalán and English, all three of which she speaks.

In fact, her first chart album, El Mal Querer, released in November 2018, was part of her college work: She had submitted it as her compulsory degree project that spring in order to graduate.

Her unusual blend of hip-hop and flamenco was what drew fans' attention to her first hit, Malamente, which soared to number one in Spain's music charts, Los 40 Principales, six months before the album came out and went on to earn her five Latin Grammy nominations.

Rosalía's very swift and meteoric rise to fame from relative obscurity has also recently seen her on the cover of the US music magazine Billboard, and feature in The New York Times' Sunday supplement.

She has been spending lockdown in her manager, Rebeca León's home in Miami, and her interview in Elle includes some of her thoughts and feelings on the effects of the pandemic on society.

Aside from being so far from her family, Rosalía says what has hit her most has been 'having to stop so suddenly' in her work.

“I'm a person who always has several projects on the go at once, and am always travelling all over the place,” she admits.

“What changed for me was realising that there are things that can suddenly stop existing overnight.”