Judeline was born at the age of 14.
It’s the stage name of Spanish singer-songwriter Lara Fernández Castrelo, who’s now 22.
If she could do it over again, she’d rethink the handle, she admitted, backstage at The Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood, Calif. She was co-headlining a show with Mexican reggaeton artist El Malilla.
“I would change it if I could, but I can’t,” she laughed, in her dressing room.
Judeline is a reference to The Beatles song “Hey Jude,” which her father often played growing up in Los Caños de Meca, a seaside town in the south of Spain.
“I was doing a random concert in my village, this summer local festival,” she explained. “I thought, ‘Oh, I need to make my Instagram profile as an artist profile.’”
The persona came to life then and there, and it stuck through the years.
She was drawn to music at a young age and began exploring lyrics and melodies when she was just 6. Her father, a musical influence, introduced her to the cuatro, a traditional Latin American string instrument. At 13, she was in a punk rock band, and at 17 she moved to Madrid to study at the Artistic Baccalaureate — but ultimately, it’s where she kicked off her career and met early collaborators, a producer duo known as Mayo and Tuiste.
Together, with Drummie, Ralphie Choo and Rusowsky of the Madrid-based collective Rusia IDK, as well as American producer Rob Bisel, Judeline released her first album: “Bodhiria.” It came out in October 2024 after she signed with Interscope Records a year earlier.
“I really love to experiment,” she said of her genre-bending music. “Bodhiria” fuses the traditional sounds of southern Spain with electronic production, while infusing flamenco and Arabic influences.
She’s in an experimental phase right now, she added, as she’s working on new music that will eventually form her sophomore album. Her latest drop, “Tú et Moi,” incorporates French lyrics and features Brazil’s Mc Morena.
“I was in Paris,” she said of recording the track in February. “We literally did the whole song in five hours. It was very fast, very easy.”
She wanted to incorporate Portuguese and reached out to Mc Morena, who’s known for her Funk Carioca style.
“She jumped in and sent everything in five minutes, literally,” Judeline went on. “It’s a very sexual song. Her music, too, is very sexual.”
“You and me, we’re connected. It’s you that I want, baby,” Judeline whispers in the song in French in her soft and angelic voice.
“France is very close to Spain, and Portugal is right there, so we’re all familiar with those languages,” she said of singing in different tongues. “I really enjoy trying to speak in other languages in my songs, because it makes me feel different.”
It’s as if she’s taking on a new character, she said. She’s currently listening to Brazilian, Arabic and North African music, she continued, including Warda, the Algerian singer. “I love it,” she smiled. “I’m also listening to a lot of trap, a lot of Cumbia, Dominica music.”
The mix has given her an original sound — one that’s caught the attention of artists like Bad Bunny, Rosalía, who have publicly praised her music, and J Balvin, who took her on tour in Europe last year.
Now, she’s marking her first U.S. tour, which kicked off at The Roxy the week between her Coachella sets on the Sonora stage.
“I was very nervous,” she said of playing the music festival. “But because it was this intimate stage, I was less nervous. I felt like people were very cool with me. They were enjoying the concert. So, I’m very happy.”
She’s enjoyed her time in L.A., she said. “I really love this place.”
She visited some tourist spots like the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Griffith Observatory.
Any shopping?
“There’s shops we don’t have in Spain,” she said. “For example, I bought a whole Lululemon look. I love it. I’m very happy with my Lululemon,” she giggled.
For the stage at The Roxy, she had on an ensemble by Nii Hai, a short white dress with a light brown fringed belt and matching knee-high boots. She’s friends with the British designer Rosie Williams. “She made the heels shorter for me.”
The fringe is key. “It gives a lot of movement to my body,” she said. “It’s very important for me to have movement in my hips.”
Glam was kept simple, no eye shadow, just lots of mascara, blush and a hard-lined lip with gloss. “We wanted to keep it really natural,” she said.
Fragrance is important to her. As a last step she put on Glossier’s “You.” “I didn’t want to have a very strong one today.”
Next, after a series of upcoming shows in Mexico and Peru, she’s off to live in New York for a month. (She plays at Elsewhere in Brooklyn on May 15.)
“Sometimes I feel like I know everybody in Madrid, so I kind of want to leave a little bit,” she said. “Also, suddenly, I broke up with my boyfriend some months ago. We’re very cool, but I think this is the right moment for me to be a little bit with myself and have this experience, this personal experience to be able to move to a city where I don’t know anyone.”
Her songwriting these days is deeply personal, she said. “Right now, I’m writing a lot about intimate things, things about myself, not really about love. I’m really exploring every single genre that I can do, and it’s making me curious.”