What a year Kali Uchis is having! The singer released her first full-length Spanish album “Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios)” last month and since then she has gone on to chart for the first time in her career, was the first female artist to earn a new top 10 album on the Latin album charts this year, was named in the top 10 albums of 2020 by the LA times + more! Sitting down (virtually) with the singer on On The Radar we got to speak with her about the project as well as she recently announced Grammy nomination, and a possible future collab with music legend Ivy Queen!
Previously releasing her “TO FEEL ALIVE” EP earlier this year, Kali surprised her fans in November with her first full-length Spanish project and her first album since 2018’s “Isolation”. The album which Kali explains serves as an album filled with many genres that made her childhood so special was a labor of love and something that she has always wanted to do.
“I always would do covers and include one song in Spanish in my projects. It is way more difficult than just making an album in English so I wanted to push myself and since I did a whole album in English pretty much I felt like it only made sense as someone who is bi-cultural and bi-lingual for my second album to be predominantly in Spanish. But that was always my dream for my career was to do one in English and on in Spanish”
Of course with the album being entirely in Spanish Kali enlisted the likes of Jowell & Randy and Jhay Cortez for features on the album. When asked about what other Latin artists she would want to work with in the future, Kali shared that she has had talks with Ivy Queen about possibly working together in the future and that is definitely something we’d love to see!
"Ivy Queen has definitely been in the talks to do something together I love her she’s an icon. She paved the way for so many Latin women today. I just love to work with legends and people who have such distinct sounds."
A few weeks after the album was released it was announced that Kali along with Kaytranada’s collaboration 10% would be nominated for “Best Dance Recording” at the 2021 Grammys. Kali who has already been nominated once before for a Grammy AND a Latin Grammy shared with us that she didn’t expect this to happen but she is grateful that the nomination was with Kaytranada.
“Honestly it was a big surprise to me I love the song I never would have expected this. Sometimes I guess it’s just the things that happen the most natural and I’m super honored for it to be with Kaytra because he and Tyler were some of the first people to send me beats, he worked on my first EP.”
Check out the full interview above and listen to Kali Uchis new album below...