Back in February, President Javier Milei started dunking on actress and pop singer Lali Espósito. He’s far from the first far-right figure to pick a fight like this: Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro did the same with singer and drag queen Pabllo Vittar, and Donald Trump has reportedly fallen out with Americana idol Taylor Swift.

Now, Lali’s pushing back through her music.

This started with Milei claiming that Espósito’s wealth comes from tax-payer money acquired through cushy state contracts to perform at public festivals around the country. Lali, he implied, was the personification of the state largesse he so hated. He nicknamed her “Lali Depósito,” meaning that she takes bank deposits from anyone, not that she’s a warehouse (the word means both in Spanish). However, this polysemy prompted the singer to record her latest music video, for the new single “Fanático” (Fan) at a storage facility.

This dig at Milei is just one of the easter eggs she put in the video. The clip shows Lali holding a casting call and watching various hopefuls take the stage. First up is an actor with Milei’s characteristic sideburns, screaming nonsensically while throwing away money. Lali finds his performance soporific.

After the primaries in August of last year, in which Milei cemented his political rise by securing the most votes, Lali tweeted “How dangerous, how sad,” words that were taken as a response to the results. When asked, Milei said that he didn’t know who Lali was because he listens to the Rolling Stones. Fanático includes a character dancing like Mick Jagger, wearing a tank top that reads “Who the f*ck is Lali?”

Up next is a man in a suit, smoking a cigarette, in a similar style to Milei’s advisor and right-hand man, Santiago Caputo. Social media users have argued that he could also be Iñaki Gutiérrez, the government’s former social media advisor, who appeared to emulate Caputo’s style after seeing how popular it was. 

Lali releases her new song, Fanático

Fanático was released on September 26, her first new release in almost a year. She is currently working on her next album, which will be released in 2025.

The song mixes her voice and the beat and strength of rock rebellion, without losing her pop sparkle. Lali dissects misinformation culture, offering a sharp commentary on contemporary society without losing her characteristic humor: laughter and playfulness are used as strategies to fight fake news. 

Expanding her songwriting team, Lali worked with Mauro de Tommaso, Galán, BB Asul, Juan Giménez Kuj and Don Bareto to bring this new stage in her music to life.

Lali Espósito: a career to make a popstar

Espósito started working on TV when she was only 10. She was in three hit TV shows, Rincón de Luz, Chiquititas, and Casi Ángeles, and sang on the soundtrack of all of them. Created by legendary producer Cris Morena, they were massive hits in Argentina and became launching pads for the shows’ young stars to tour the world. 

Lali starred in Esperanza Mía, her first prime-time TV show, when she was just 23 — and it also gets a nod in the Fanático video. She then appeared in the Netflix show Sky Rojo and starred in the hit Amazon Prime series El fin del amor (The End of Love), which remained among the top 10 most watched in 26 countries during its first week.

While working on these projects, she started delving into music. Her first solo album, A bailar (Let’s dance), kicked off a successful career that saw her become the first Argentine female solo artist to sell out the Vélez Stadium. She performed there in front of 50,000 people in March 2023.

Lali was also a coach for two seasons on the Argentine version of the singing contest The Voice, and has taken her music on international tours.