Kali Uchis tells Apple Music about recently revealed pregnancy, ‘Orquídeas’, and more

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The ethereal Kali Uchis chats with Zane Lowe for New Music Daily on Apple Music 1 to celebrate the release of her new album, ‘Orquídeas’ out today. Just yesterday Uchis revealed her pregnancy to the world on social media and she discusses how she feels now that the news is out. Additional topics include, working with Peso Pluma, how this record—her second Latin album—feels more like a Dance album, and how she keeps her fans on their toes.

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She also reveals that she has another album’s worth of material completed that she’s ready to drop this year.

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Kali Uchis on her pregnancy announcement and her relationship with Don Toliver

I’m really happy. It feels really freeing. We go out all the time to eat or to run errands or to whatever, and I would just be wearing a coat because I didn’t want anyone to sneak a picture or make an announcement for us. So, yeah, it’s a good feeling to just be out with it now.

Our relationship is a lot deeper than all of this other stuff, so we definitely like to balance keeping our private life private.

On the title of her second latin album ‘Orquídeas’

I think it was perfect because for me it has that sense of timelessness like we were talking about. It’s also the national flower of Colombia. And this being my second Latin album, I feel like it’s always been important for me when I make a body of work in Spanish to pay tribute to a lot of the genres I listened to growing up and my heritage, so that played a part. And then I didn’t actually know at the time, but later I found out it’s actually the flower of fertility. And so then after I found out I was pregnant, I was like, oh, this is really so perfect because I have been pregnant most of the rollout, so it’s been a very different experience for me.

On working with Peso Pluma

I just love Mexico in general. My uncle is Mexican and he was like a part-time dad to me, so I’ve always felt really close to Mexican culture and Mexican people. I wanted to incorporate somebody from Mexico who was putting on a global scale for them right now. And to me, that’s him right now for sure.

On the song ‘Igual Que Un Ángel’

I really wanted to focus on… I’m talking about this girl, this woman, and how she doesn’t necessarily care about the other things that people might want her to care about in today’s society. So, it’s, in a way, challenging the societal norms for girls today in the sense of she doesn’t care about money, she doesn’t care about materialistic things, she doesn’t care about fame, she doesn’t care about whatever. She cares about her soul. She caress about her heart. And I think it’s a beautiful message to send because we need more people like that in the world. I think he was great for it because, like I said, I love to make music that’s unpredictable, and a lot of people were scared how he would sound on this and didn’t know how he would sound on it. And he really killed it.

On how this record changed her, and how it’s her dance album

I think I pushed myself in ways energetically because I don’t have that much dance music, and so this is my Dance album. So, I think I learned a lot more about just pushing myself to make all types of different genres. There’s Merengue, there’s house, there’s Latin Disco. I learned a lot more about my versatility, I would say.

On keeping her fans on their toes

I feel like my core fan base, any artist’s core fan base, they’re always going to expect a certain thing from you or want a certain thing from you. But I think as an artist, it’s really important for me at least to never be predictable. And when I love an artist and I love their body of works, and then it’s like every time they drop something, it’s like I already know what it’s going to sound like. Every song sounds the same. So, I love to just have fun with it and keep everybody on their toes. What could it be?

On having another album done for this year

I did a lot of work. I’m still doing a lot of work, but I think that’s why I’m kind of in a place in my life where I’m like, I grew up in a Latino household and my family was an immigrant family. So you very much always have the mentality, that capitalistic mentality of constantly having to be productive and constantly needing to make money. And I think trying to free myself a bit more from that is kind of where I’m at right now. So I’m still, I create every day. I have a whole other album. I’m ready to drop this year.

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