![]() This has meant trusting her instincts on everything from rejecting easy-money gigs writing songs for other artists to singing in Spanish, even when the audience didn’t seem to be with her quite yet: “When I would start performing songs or doing covers in Spanish-at least in all the places I was performing-it was always kind of a weird vibe,” Uchis recalls of her early festival circuit. “I think that when you become too consumed by how to use your God-given gifts for capitalism-and that becomes your main priority, charting or selling or whatever-I think that you can get lost really easily that way.” “Music is one of my purposes for sure, but it’s more so just what helps me feel connected to God, what helps me feel connected to myself,” she says. As did a 2021 Grammy for Best Dance Recording that she shares with Kaytranada (not to mention rumors of a possible future collab with Ariana Grande).Īnd here we are, nearly 2.5 billion streams later. “When you see that you can actually make a difference in people’s lives by sharing your art, that’s what encouraged me to keep going.” Collaborations with Snoop Dogg and with Bootsy Collins and Tyler, the Creator followed. “After I shared that first project, I saw how much it resonated with people,” Uchis says. When you become too consumed by how to use your God-given gifts for capitalism-and that becomes your main priority, charting or selling or whatever-I think you can get lost really easily.” At 17, she was kicked out of her house and wound up living in her car and recording songs there, mixing them on GarageBand and releasing a lo-fi mixtape, 2012’s Drunken Babble. Soon, music became something bigger: the first thing she did when she got home, the thing she cared about even if no one would ever get to listen to it. Using the money she earned, she bought a camera and laptop, and started recording songs, making beats, and sampling music to go with the visuals. Uchis calls this part of her teen years her background phase, when she got into photography and cinematography and learned how to film music videos and make cover art for other people’s mixtapes. I was the kid who was always like, ‘Look at me-look, I’m doing this, look, look.’” And then? “Then I went through a long phase where I definitely didn’t want to be looked at.” “When I was really little, I liked attention. She also wrote poems, which she turned into lyrics, but she couldn’t imagine herself performing like the singers she now considers influences-vocal powerhouses like Sade, Amy Winehouse, Shakira, and Björk. “I wanted to play violin, but my parents weren’t about to rent a whole other instrument. “My older brother played saxophone, so it was in the house already,” she says with a laugh. “I always loved music, I always loved making things, and I knew in general that my purpose was to create,” she says, “but I never ever thought that I would be a singer.” She was a saxophonist in her high school’s jazz band. Born Karly-Marina Loaiza, Uchis grew up between Pereira, Colombia, and the suburbs of northern Virginia as the youngest of five children.
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