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Kali Uchis Vibez

Nine tracks from a Colombian-American singer who has spent her career refusing to pick a genre, a language or a decade.

kali-uchis

Kali Uchis

Karly-Marina Loaiza grew up between Virginia and Pereira, Colombia, and that split is the organising fact of her music. She sings in English and Spanish, sometimes in the same verse, and her records draw on doo-wop, bolero, reggaeton, psychedelic soul and trap without ever settling into any of them.

What holds it together is a consistent aesthetic rather than a consistent sound: a deliberately retro, slightly lurid glamour, and a voice that is small, high and used with real precision. She writes about money, ambition and self-possession far more than about romance, which makes her lyrics considerably tougher than the sweetness of the production implies.

She also made the rare move of building a Spanish-language career in parallel rather than as an afterthought, and it worked.

What to listen for

"After The Storm" with Tyler, The Creator and Bootsy Collins is the essential track — three generations of funk in one song, with Bootsy's presence functioning as a benediction.

"Tyrant" with Daniel Caesar is the best-sung thing here and the most straightforwardly beautiful.

"Nuestro Planeta" with Reykon is the Spanish-language entry and the one that signalled where the second half of her career was going.

"Lottery" (also known as "Just a Stranger") is the hardest record on the list, and "Know What I Want" is the clearest statement of the persona.

"Only Girl" with Steve Lacy and Vince Staples is the loosest and most fun, and "TO FEEL ALIVE" is the most fragile.

Free Nationals' "Time" with Mac Miller is one of the last things Miller recorded, and it is lovely.

Gorillaz' "Ticker Tape" with Carly Simon is the strangest credit in her discography.

Go deeper

Isolation (2018) is the album to start with and remains her best — produced with an enormous cast including Thundercat, Damon Albarn and BadBadNotGood. Sin Miedo (2020) is the Spanish-language record.

For the surrounding world: Tyler, The Creator's Flower Boy, Steve Lacy's solo work, and the Free Nationals album. For the retro-glamour lineage, Amy Winehouse is the obvious reference point.

Listening note: the sweetness of the production is a delivery system rather than the message. Read the lyrics of almost anything here and the subject turns out to be money, leverage or self-protection, sung in a voice designed to sound like a love song. That gap between surface and content is the most consistent thing about her writing.

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