Kali Uchis Opens Up About Her Pregnancy, New Album 'Orquídeas,' & More | Billboard News
Grammy award-winning artist Kali Uchis sat down with Billboard News to discuss her pregnancy and the release of her new album “Orquídeas.” Uchis shares her excitement about becoming a mother and the challenges of keeping her pregnancy a secret while continuing to perform and attend red carpet events. She explains that the album’s theme of the orchid flower, which symbolizes timelessness, femininity, and luxury, was a perfect representation of her Colombian heritage and also tied into her unexpected pregnancy.
Uchis also reveals that her music is influenced by her multicultural upbringing and her desire to explore different styles and genres, not restricting herself to one language or sound. She emphasizes her mission to expand the way people view Latinas in music and break free from the limitations often placed on Latin artists. Uchis also teases her upcoming fifth album, which she describes as having more energy and higher tempo than her previous work, while also hinting at a future project with a more down-tempo vibe.
For Uchis, the goal of her music is to express herself as freely as possible, without confining herself to any expectations or boundaries. She looks up to artists like Shakira, who have successfully balanced their personal lives with their public image, and aims to prioritize her music over her personal life. Ultimately, Uchis’s openness and creativity shine through in her latest album, showcasing her growth as an artist and her commitment to breaking barriers in the music industry.
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It’s a spiritual language it’s not about English or Spanish it’s not about genre it’s just really about expressing yourself as freely as you can hi my name is kuchis and this is bber News hey I’m Lindsay Havens here for billboard news and we are here with the Grammy award-winning artist KY Uchi So we have two drops to talk about here congratulations thank you so excited for you how have you been keeping this a secret what’s been the hardest part of that I had to do some shows and I was on a times list so I had to do a red carpet
That was really hard and then when the time does come what are you most excited for about being a mom I don’t know it’s so much to be excited for honestly so it’s hard to say just one thing you won’t know until it happens yeah exactly your fourth album orcadas is now out
Congratulations it’s all about the theme of The Orchid that inspired this how did you sort of land on that and why was that flower like the proper embodiment yeah I feel like the flower for me it always symbolized timelessness femininity luxury it has a Eerie mystical quality about it as well
And it’s also the national flower of colia so for me it all tied in and then I didn’t find out that I was pregnant so later in my roll out but actually it’s also the flower of fertility so it actually all came together perfectly Universe knew before you did absolutely
How do you honor your Columbian Heritage you know of course it’s on all of your projects but on this one especially considering that this gets the flower I think just making sure that I always explore as much as I can as an artist I never try to be predictable I
Never try to do something I’ve already done I always just expand either on things that I have done that feel authentic to me or you know just never limit myself creatively so I think playing more with different styles of music that influenced Me growing Up was definitely one Way tell me about the range of things you did listen to Growing Up like what’s the best example of how all over the board you are you know Latin music has such a range um and there’s so much different culture across the entire Board of our music and then also being
By cultural having all the other influences that I had growing up in VA as well all of that definitely became a huge Melting Pot for me and influenced not only me as an artist but me as a person we get that Duality as fans you know you switch so far between each
Album Spanish language English language what’s the strategy or you know inspiration behind doing that there was never a strategy behind it is more so just I grew up very much like Spanglish bil langual you know I I went to school in Colombia I finished my education in
The United States so I had that experience of really living in both countries and having a childhood in both countries and I learned to read and write Spanish before English and so for me it it’s always just been part of my writing Process always say so if you had to describe how this album is different from your previous three is there a way that you would say that I would say throughout the album it has the most energy than any album that ever before I’m not a new artist anymore I’m looking
More at my discography as a whole and it’s just something that I always wanted like oh I want an album that’s dedicated to more higher energy or dance music cuz I don’t have that my next album that I’ve also been working on right now that’s also going to come out this year
Later in the year is like all down Tempo Music so being able to have the contrast you know I feel I feel like there’s so much within me that needs to be expressed and I never want to want to confine myself to anything so this was
That for me this fifth album is now done which is pretty amazing yeah the fifth album a lot of the fifth album was recorded and and written like while being pregnant yeah H was telling me that like once he became a dad he started writing these lullab like they
Just without even trying that’s just like where his mind went naturally so I’m excited for some down Tempo but I’m loving the high energy of this project as well speaking of the balance of like privacy but also having be on stage night after night are there other
Artists that you look to who you really respect how they balance that like maintaining their personal life but also being in the public eye every day I think probably the artist I most look up to when it comes to that especially is definitely sh um it is such a fine line
Between you know trying to understand how much of ourselves are we really meant to share or do we really feel comfortable sharing and at the end of the day I’ve always really thought it was strange that there is such a an expectation on artist to share their
Personal life when at the end of the day it’s like we’re just musicians we’re not political figures we’re not running for president like we just make music so for me I try to just always remember that my music is the most important thing it’s supposed to be in the Forefront my
Private life and my personal matters I really don’t want that to be something that’s consuming or overshadowing my work I think it’s so important and you clearly you do an amazing job at it it’s not easy I imagine yeah it is hard in a statement to billbert esel you had said
That one of the goals of this album is to how we look at Latinas in music absolutely tell me a little bit more about that and the importance of that you know being that I’m Latina and I a music you kind of get um categorized as
A Latin artist even when you know not all of the music that I do is technically Latin music yeah exactly so realizing that it’s in a way people view it as its own genre when really like how I was saying earlier there’s so many different genres that have to do with
Ltin music in the first place there’s so much different types of music you can make or in my case where I don’t only make music in Spanish I also make a lot of music in English and a lot of different genres in English as well so I
Think that in a way it can be a bit limiting because of that so for me definitely part of what I want to do and accomplish with my work is expand the way that people view all of the things that we’re capable of Doing you got hang on there are a lot of artists who sing in Spanish that actually are English speakers primarily and they’ve come to me and they’ve been like wow you really make me want to make music in English too I’ve always wanted to be able to make music in English but my
Label doesn’t want me to do that because you know whatever or this or that is what sells for me and la la la I think as an artist what’s most important always and what should always be in the Forefront of your creative process is just the thought of how I said like no
Limitations just make and don’t think about how it’s going to be received don’t think about how it’s going to be sold don’t think about that’s supposed to be your label’s job or whoever it is that’s you know that’s supposed to be their job to figure that out later so I
Definitely feel like everyone should just be as free as possible when creating I imagine it’s not fun to create something knowing it has to fit into a box before it’s even finished you know and I I really do commend you on that like what you’re able to do with
The work you have out and I’m so excited to hear what’s still coming is it is always different and you know the times I’ve seen you live too I feel like your show embodies all of that like your collaborations speak to that as well like your collaborators are never
Limited in one lane yeah it makes it really fun we never know what you’re going to do so I want to break down we have some amazing collaborations on this album that I want to break down with you obviously we need to talk about the one
That went top 10 on the hot Latin Songs chart with Carol G Leos MOS it’s your second collab with Carol how did this come about how did you know that you two wanted to get back in the studio together well actually I had showed this song to her so long ago I wrote this song back in I want to say
Like the beginning of 2021 I showed it to her she came to my house and I played it for her and I played her a couple songs that I was working on foras and um this was her favorite like her absolute favorite so it ended up coming full
Circle later she really wanted me on that um my said I want thr the part two and that song that she had for that album in mind for me already so I got to the studio I had recorded immediately when I went there and I’m like so love
What about that used to be called tattoo at the time so I was like oh what about that song like trade for trade and she was like okay yeah let’s do it so she’s always been super supportive and she’s she’s just like a big sis you know um
She’s been doing this for so long I have so much respect for her work and her dedication to her work so you said it was originally called tattoos yeah tattoo and now it translates to bit and lit right B lips tell me about why that
Title is the right I mean this is a sexy song so tell me about how you landed on that title well obviously the hook is his tattoo so tattoo is like the demo title it was like the obvious version but I don’t really like to to have
Titles that feel generic or you know there’s a lot of other songs with them so there’s another part in the song which is technically like the preh hook and it says and I was like oh that’s a cute that’s a cute name and it has like a
Little ring to it in the song so every once in a while I like to if I if I don’t want the song to have a generic title then I’m going to pick something a little bit more off that’s in the song that you wouldn’t really expect it to be
Called so that’s how that happen and as a fan I always love when I’m listening and like you hear it’s like when you’re watching a movie and you hear the movie tile somewhere in the line you know you just kind of like perk up you feel like
Oh that’s where it came from yeah I like that too yeah I’ve always like titles that I like that so I try to do that with my music and then the next one we need to talk about this is like a high energy single Mita so we have L Alpa and
JT from city girls this was the lead single how did you know that you wanted this to introduce the Album the body of work in general for me is timeless which is where I always strive to do I strive to make timeless music but I’m very when it comes to dropping singles I look at things very seasonally so at the time you know we’re
About to be in summer and I was like this is you know this is the song I want to drop for the summer something fun and unpredictable because you know nobody would expect me and JT to work together no one would expect me and Ela to work together and they definitely wouldn’t
Expect them two to work together so for me that that makes music so much fun to make just just creating unpredictable collaborations and bringing people together from different cultures and pushing people to make music and you know JT she hadn’t really done anything like that and writing for
Her that was my first time like writing really writing for another girl like I wrote the whole verse and everything and and it was really an experience for both of us where we were kind of like for the first time you know trying something new
JT came to my house and she cut it so so smoothly such a natural with her Spanish so it was a lot of fun do you think you would ever do a project that’s all collaborations like how do you strike a balance between how many you actually my
Next one that’s coming after this one has no collaborations which is something that remember I told you like I always want to do stuff that I’ve never done before yes from since isolation which was my first album I’ve always been very collaborative so this one I really
Wanted to be just me and stand on my own and maybe one day I would do a all collaborative album but the head space I’m in right now is definitely not collaborative that’s exciting to look forward to as well yeah it’s different I’m sure at one point you’ll figure out
A tour where that fits into your life but if there’s one hope for this album what would that be for you definitely just to inspire other other ltin artists to play with different genres and Inspire other artists in general no matter no matter their ethnicity or what
Language they speak to just create from a free space and yeah definitely Chang the way that people view Latinas in the industry and in music and we’re very grateful thank you and again congratulations two big drops yeah we’re very happy for you thank you
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Video “Kali Uchis Opens Up About Her Pregnancy, New Album 'Orquídeas,' & More | Billboard News” was uploaded on 01/13/2024 to Youtube Channel Billboard