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Madonna · S10 E2
Madame X
The album, the multiple identities, the Afrobeats and fado influences, and the mixed reception
A recording studio in Lisbon, 2018. Madonna plays Mirwais a folder of voice memos recorded on her phone in fado bars, Afrobeat clubs, and batucada sessions across the city, and tells him to build an album out of sounds that have never been on a pop record before.
"The World of Madame X" (2019). Madonna's own documentary about the making of the album, filmed in Lisbon. You see her in fado bars, at batucada rehearsals, and in the studio with Mirwais, building an album out of sounds she collected like postcards from a city that changed her. Twenty-two minutes of the most unguarded creative footage she has released since Truth or Dare.
The Album
Madame X is the most eclectic record Madonna has ever made. Mirwais returns as primary producer, but the sound has nothing in common with their previous collaborations. Reggaeton from Colombia, fado from Portugal, batucada from Cape Verde, trap from Atlanta, and Latin pop from everywhere collide across fifteen tracks that refuse to sit still in any one genre.
“I made this record because I was inspired by so many different types of music. I wanted to make an album that sounded like a mixtape from everywhere I had been.”
— Madonna, on the Madame X sessions
TAP TO REVEAL: Why did critics call Madame X "uncommercial"?
The World of Madame X (Documentary, 2019)
The documentary shows Madonna's creative process in a way no official release has done since Truth or Dare. You see her sitting on the floor of a Lisbon studio, playing Mirwais voice memos from her phone, arguing about arrangements, and recording vocals in a room that looks nothing like a professional studio. Watch for the moments where she listens to batucada drummers and fado singers in the street and you can see the songs forming in real time. It is the closest thing to being inside her head during the making of an album.
Coliseu dos Recreios, Lisbon
The 19th-century theater in central Lisbon where the Madame X Tour plays multiple dates in January 2020. Madonna performs in a venue that holds fewer than 4,000 people, a fraction of the arenas and stadiums she has filled for decades. The intimacy is deliberate.
Madame X: The Album
Killers Who Are Partying
From Madame X (2019). The most politically charged track on the album, and the one most likely to start an argument. Madonna lists every identity she claims: "I will be gay if the gay are burned, I'll be Africa if Africa is shut down, I will be poor if the poor are humiliated." The production is sparse and insistent, leaving the lyric nowhere to hide. Whether you find it powerful or performative depends on how much credit you give a sixty-year-old pop star for trying.
Killers Who Are Partying, Madonna (2019)
Read the lyrics while you listen. Madonna lists the people she identifies with: immigrants, the poor, the persecuted, the silenced. The song generated instant debate about whether a wealthy white woman can credibly claim these identities. That debate is the entire point.
What record did Madonna set with the release of Madame X?
In June 2023, Madonna is found unresponsive in her New York apartment and rushed to the ICU with a bacterial infection. For the first time in forty years, the question is not whether she will make music again, but whether she will survive the night.
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