Madonna talked with Billboard’s Keith Caulfield behind the stage at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards on Wednesday (May 1), chatting about getting ready for her performance with Maluma, the way toward making her new album Madame X, and from where she drew the motivation for its title..
To get ready for their BBMAs performance of their collaborative song “Medellin,” Madonna disclosed to Billboard that she began practicing numerous months prior to nail down the innovation, the green screen personas, and the actual performance with Maluma.
She likewise opened up about how she united with Maluma in the first place, clarifying that “Medellin” was one of the first songs she had composed when she previously begun her new record, yet she set it aside for later when she started working with different musicians in Lisbon.
“I thought I need to sing with a man on this song cause it’s a song about desire and longing,” she said of listening to it when she returned to the song. “I liked the tone of his voice, so I asked him to be on it with me.”
“I had no idea how many songs I was gonna end up with,” she said of narrowing down the tracks on the album. “The record was born in Lisbon…originally, I’d worked with a lot of Portuguese musicians, and sang several songs in Portuguese, and then it kind of expanded to different countries, to Brazil, to Colombia, and then interspersed working with Mirwais, the French producer, so the song kind of, it’s really a global album.”
Whenever inquired as to whether the record is a concept album, seeing as she takes on various personas, for example, equestrian rider and teacher, she downplayed it..
Madonna additionally uncovered how she settled on the title, Madame X, clarifying that it was a name given to her when she was 19 years of age and first moved to New York City.
“A woman who I looked up to and admired [Martha Graham] gave me that name because she said she couldn’t recognize all my different personas because I kept changing the way I looked,” Madonna recounted. “That was in the beginning of my career when I didn’t think about who I should be or what I should be. I was experimenting. And so I felt like I had come full circle and gave the record that name, cause I’m in the same frame of mind.”
