Rosalía Gives Paquita Her Due In Mexico City
Rosalía just made the family tree behind “La Perla” a whole lot clearer. During the opening night of her five-show run at Mexico City’s Palacio de los Deportes, the Spanish superstar stopped to acknowledge the Mexican song she says helped make her own scorched-earth breakup anthem possible: Paquita la del Barrio’s legendary “Rata de dos patas.”
Speaking to the crowd on Aug. 22, Rosalía reflected on Mexico’s musical history and the way traditional Mexican music has informed her own work. Then she made the connection explicit: “Sin ‘Rata de dos patas’, ‘La Perla’ no existe.”
Translation: without Paquita’s all-timer of a verbal dragging, there is no “La Perla.” And suddenly one of LUX’s sharpest songs makes even more sense.
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From Paquita’s Venom To Rosalía’s LUX Era
Revisit the music behind Rosalía’s Mexico City salute — from Paquita la del Barrio’s classic takedown to the LUX album that carried its spirit forward.
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“Rata De Dos Patas” Walked So “La Perla” Could Bite
Paquita la del Barrio built an entire legend out of saying the thing polite heartbreak songs were too scared to say. “Rata de dos patas,” written by Manuel Eduardo Toscano and released in the early 2000s, became one of her signature songs precisely because it does not gently mourn a bad man. It verbally annihilates him.
That spirit is all over “La Perla,” Rosalía’s collaboration with Yahritza Y Su Esencia from LUX. The language is different, the production belongs to another generation, but the thesis is familiar: when heartbreak turns into clarity, sometimes subtlety is simply not invited.
Rosalía’s own vocabulary includes one particularly lethal description: “terrorista emocional.” It is exactly the kind of phrase that lands because Paquita helped establish a whole tradition in which women could turn romantic disappointment into something funny, furious, theatrical and completely unsparing.
Mexico Was The Perfect Place To Say It Out Loud
The tribute carried extra weight because Rosalía made it in Mexico City, where the LUX Tour is playing five nights at Palacio de los Deportes on Aug. 22, 24, 26, 28 and 29.
Before naming Paquita, Rosalía spoke about the honor of performing in a country with such deep musical history and tradition, and about the connections she hears between Mexican music and flamenco. The shout-out was not tossed in as trivia. She was placing “La Perla” inside a lineage.
Paquita, who died in 2025, spent decades turning betrayal, machismo and lousy men into songs that audiences could scream back at the stage. Rosalía taking one of the biggest songs of her own current era and publicly tracing part of its DNA back to Paquita feels less like an influence reveal and more like proper musical respect.
And now every time “La Perla” gets to that “terrorista emocional” line, we are probably going to hear a little bit of Paquita standing behind it with her arms crossed.
Watch Rosalía Salute Paquita La Del Barrio In Mexico City
During the opening night of her five-show Palacio de los Deportes run, Rosalía explains why Paquita la del Barrio’s “Rata de dos patas” is part of the DNA of “La Perla.”
Sources: Rosalía’s Mexico City remarks as reported Aug. 23–24, 2026; OCESA/Ticketmaster Mexico for the five Palacio de los Deportes dates; and the embedded video.
