Berlin-born singer who has tied her life to Poland, where she has been very successful on the music scene, combining pop and R&B powered by a hip-hop pulse. Winner of the 2021 Fryderyk Award.
German childhood, Polish school
Rosalie Hoffman was born in June 1993 in Berlin to a Polish family. Her parents moved to the German metropolis for work. The singer spent five and a half years there, together with her sister, becoming very accustomed to the local environment. After her parents decided to return to Poland and live in Poznań, the girls rebelled against it vehemently. Although she was still deeply fascinated by music in Berlin and even had the opportunity as a child to participate in the recording of songs for albums accompanying German-language textbooks, the passion developed in earnest in Poland:
Text
My love for music manifested itself at an early age in my life, so my parents decided to send me to a music school in Poznań, where I completed my first degree in piano. However, nothing got me as excited as singing and I soon decided to leave school in favour of choirs or private singing lessons. As such, I can’t call myself self-taught, because I think school gave me access to basic knowledge. However, that’s not why writing melodies comes so easily to me. It works much more intuitively.
Picture display
standardowy (864px desktop)
Rosalie., the artist’s promotional materials
Picture image
rosalie2.jpg
Rosalie. became interested in hip-hop in the mid-2000s, after her sister was given the best-selling debut album by rapper The Game, The Documentary, from her boyfriend. The artist’s fascination came to include R&B music, both in its more classical and alternative guises, and – thanks to her school days – she was also inspired by the work of Claude Debussy. This made Rosalie.’s work, from her very first independent recordings, diverse, steeped in a palette of different sonic colours and genres.
Consciously, consistently, in her own way
The first mature recordings of the artist trying to break through on the music scene were written in English. This was also the case with her debut single This Thing Called Love, which was released in 2015. The singer recalls this period as follows: ‘I was mostly accompanied by excitement. The first single was the moment when those closest to me were hyping and cheering me so much that when I was uploading the song to YouTube we were all screaming with joy. I remember it as a really special experience.’
The very warm reception of the recording motivated the artist to publish more, but not to abandon her regular work, to which, as she herself admits, she owes her creative energy. Rosalie. was also inspired by her stay in Berlin for several months, which inspired her to create fresh, colourful music.
W listopadzie 2016 roku ukazała się premierowa EP artystki "Enuff", dopracowana w każdym calu z udziałem ciekawych producentów, znanych na polskiej scenie niezależnej (m.in. Lux Familiar, Jordah i Mentalcut). Z pięciu opublikowanych utworów Rosalie. dwa wykonała po polsku.
Text
There was talk that it would be good to start creating in Polish for the sake of the listeners, and in retrospect I think that was one of the better pieces of advice I received. Ten years ago, reaching a larger group of people in English had its considerable limitations. At first I was very reluctant because, firstly, I had never listened to Polish music and, secondly, R&B in Polish seemed like something unwritable to me, I was afraid of kitsch. Fortunately, on my way I met lyricists such as Michał Wiraszko and Arek Sitarz, who dispelled my suspicions with their choice of words and sensitivity.
The very well-received EP meant that the artist did not have to worry about contract offers, so she soon decided to join the independent label Alkopoligamia.com. Rosalie.’s debut album was one of the most anticipated records of 2018. The scale of expectation and interest is best demonstrated by the fact that the album Flashback, released mid-January, went as high as ninth place on the Polish bestseller list. The release proved that it is possible to make quality R&B in Poland, successfully flirting with both hip-hop and pop, without shortcuts or blindly following what is most popular.
The hit recordings Królowa (Queen) and A Pamiętasz? (Do You Remember?) came to the fore, to which a reviewer for the Interia portal devoted warm words, writing: ‘Even in such a niche in her home market, the singer sets a direction that the whole industry could follow in order to keep up with the rest of the world. A big plus.’ An equally enthusiastic review was written by Bartek Woynicz for Nowamuzyka.pl:
Text
Rosalie.’s lack of an artificially contrived image, her naturalness or even her roguishness are an added bonus, and the fact that she relies solely on music and does not have to appear in her underwear to arouse interest deserves the utmost respect. Just as for the fact that, with the help of Arek ‘Rasa’ Sitar and Michał Wiraszka from Muchy, she tries her hand at the difficult matter of Polish lyrics.
Flashback was the only LP that Rosalie. released on Alkopoligamia.com. In the autumn of 2019, she became the first Polish artist on Def Jam, a newly established label under Universal Music. She explained the details surrounding the move in an interview with Red Bull Music:
Text
After the last album, I thought for a long time about what to do next and who to actually go to. I was weighing up my options. There were two ideas: either release on my own or go to a major label. At the stage I was at then, the majors were able to help me the most. Because they have contacts, Polish and foreign, they’re really good in terms of promotion, and a project like mine needed that a lot. A major label gives you the money for a record that sounds exactly the way you wanted it to. And Def Jam turned out to be the best solution. It came at the perfect time and I’m mega glad I was able to grow into it and choose it myself. That I didn’t have to sign a six-year contract for 10 records just to have that contract in hand.
The artist has released two albums and one EP on Def Jam. Both the album IDeal (2020) and Motherlode (2023) received good reviews from critics and a warm reception from listeners. A reviewer from Newsweek wrote enthusiastically about the first of the two records: The artist feels perfectly at home in sensual R&B and soul, but electronic sounds, pulsating bass and dance rhythms also suit her. And, most importantly, her lyrics do not sound artificial or trivial – this is particularly audible in ‘Spływa’ and ‘Chodź Chodź Chodź’. World-class.
We could read about the second one, among others, in the pages of Brak Kultury:
Text
‘Motherlode’ is a very successful fusion of R&B, club music and electro-pop, a kind of post-neosoul and yet, surprisingly, still hip-hop, because it sounds unintrusive and light. ‘Surprisingly’, because although Rosalie.’s music has always flirted with the rap world, in the new songs the hip-hop rhythmic inspirations seem to be hidden too deeply for the untrained ear – and on the other hand, so deeply that perhaps they are the... foundation here?
Numerous collaborations
Rosalie.’s remarkable voice and distinctive style and originality are reflected in the artist’s numerous collaborations. Hip-hop artists are particularly keen to record with her. She has already collaborated on tracks with stars of the rap scene including Taco Hemingway on Sanatorium, Kukon on Samotność (Loneliness) and Otsochodzi on Nagrania (00:37) (Recordings (00:37)), among others.
Rosalie.’s duets with artists counted among the most interesting artists of the alternative scene, such as her work with Brodka on Jezioro Szczęścia (The Lake of Happiness) and Bartosz Króel on Potrzeba Skał (The Need for Rocks), which were also well received. Together with Brodka and Margaret, she recorded the musical anthem of the Babie Lato project, the song Błyszczę (I Shine), while Turkish star Lil Zey invited her to participate in the single 80 Kere, which boasts more than 26 million listens on Spotify. It is working with foreign artists that is now one of the challenges for the artist, as she herself mentions:
Text
It has always been my dream to launch my repertoire abroad at the right time. I think time plays the biggest role here. Poland is a small market and I wouldn’t want to feel that I’ve hit some kind of a ceiling. The best way is to go abroad with a new repertoire and test myself in new conditions. Nothing is impossible for me and working with producers from other countries has managed to teach me a lot over the years. I don’t associate this with being successful, it’s more about finding new experiences, inspiration. Above all, I like challenges.
Awards
From the beginning, Hoffman’s work has received recognition from the music industry, but also from journalists. In 2018, the singer was awarded the prize of the first edition of the Sanki (Sleds) Awards, in which a group of people involved in the Polish music scene annually looks for new faces, artists who will be talked about for many years to come. Jarek Szubrycht from the music editorial team of Gazeta Wyborcza and a member of the Sanki chapter wrote:
Text
Listening to ‘Flashback’, it is hard not to think of Sistars’ spectacular debut from the beginning of the century. We have had to wait as long as a decade and a half for another equally promising new face in this ambitious and difficult genre, of which in Poland we are consumers rather than creators. We do not know whether Rosalie. heralds the birth of the Polish R&B scene. We don't even know how she’ll make it on her own, but we believe she’ll go far – which is, after all, what the Sleds are all about.
At the same time, the artist was nominated for the 2018 Fryderyk Award for Phonographic Debut of the Year, but the statuette went to Daria Zawiałow. Rosalie. waited for her triumph until 2021, when her record IDeal was honoured in the Soul, R&B, Gospel Album of the Year category.
Selected discography:
- 2018 – Flashback
- 2020 – IDeal
- 2023 – Motherlode
