Switched on Pop - Kali Uchis takes on the world

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis has cemented herself as something of a vibe curator; her signature genre fusion has brought forward everything from Latin radio mainstays to Bootsy Collins collaborations. But instead of looking to the genres of the future for her latest record, Orchídeas finds Uchis digging into genres of the past and present, creating a global soundscape across the record’s 14 tracks. On this episode of Switched on Pop, producer Reanna Cruz guides Charlie and Nate through the flowery world of Orchídeas, exploring multiple genres of the Latine diaspora (with a quick stop in South Africa) in the process. Sign up for the Switched On Pop Newsletter Songs Discussed: Kali Uchis – Pensamientos Intrusivos Kali Uchis – telepatía Kali Uchis – Te Mata Kali Uchis – la luna enamorada José Pepe Sánchez, Irving Lara y su Orquesta – Tristezas La Sonora Santanera – Perfume de Gardenias Kali Uchis, El Alfa, JT – Muñekita (with El Alfa & JT)  ROSALÍA – BIZCOCHITO Busta Rhymes – Dangerous Lorna – Papi Chulo… Te Traigo El Mmmm Kali Uchis, Peso Pluma – Igual Que Un Ángel (with Peso Pluma) Kali Uchis, KAROL G – Labios Mordidos (with KAROL G) Toots & The Maytals – Bam Bam Chaka Demus & Pliers – Murder She Wrote Kali Uchis – Dame Beso // Muevete Bad Bunny – Después de la Playa Kali Uchis – Diosa Trompies, Lebo Mathosa – Magasman Tyla – Water Amaarae, Kali Uchis, Moliy – SAD GIRLZ LUV MONEY Remix (feat. Kali Uchis and Moliy) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu, it's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, Odu replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made.

made the switch. So why not you? Try Odu for free at Odu.com. That's ODOO.com. Welcome to Switchnon-pop. I'm producer Rianna Cruz. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. So I feel like 2024 has already been off to a good start with new releases, right? For sure. Absolutely. The year just started. And we already have the first big album release of the year with Calli Uchis and her album Orchideas. That was Penzamentos intrusivos, or in English

intrusive thoughts. And it sounds like Caliucci's brand of signature romantic dream pop, of which there is a lot of on Orchideas. But what makes Orchideas special is that it's more

than the standard Calli Uchis sound. What's really interesting about this record is that it takes us through multiple different sounds in the Latina diaspora, highlighting Callie's versatility to break genre and cultural barriers in her music. Oh, this is exciting because I got to speak with Callie Cheese back at Vultrafest 2020, and she had

told me about these two new albums coming out, one, a primarily English album called Red Moon and Venus that came out in 2023. And then there was this like Spanish language album that was going to be coming out. And she wasn't telling me when I was really excited to hear it. We finally have it. This is cool. Yeah, and going even further back, I remember when we covered her song after the storm, and I was so impressed the way Kalyuchis found her collaborators in the worlds of jazz and hip-hop and classic funk. So I'm excited to learn more about her latest release and see where she's taking her sound in 2024. That's part of the beauty of Kali Uchis, is that she combines all of these different sounds and genres into her music. And with regards to her Spanish language records,

you might know her as a Colombian-American singer and songwriter, but she's not just doing Latin music on Orquidias. She's doing global music. And I want to break down how she does that. So let's take a look inside the flowery world of Calliuchis. Take us there. So Charlie, as you previously mentioned, you interviewed her at Vulture Fest, had a delightful conversation. Oh, thank you. One of the two records that you mentioned, she released last year, Red Mood and Venus, making Orchideas her fourth LP. And Orquideas is Callie's second Spanish language album following Sin Miero, which came out in 2020. Sin Miero itself is kind of the gift that keeps on giving.

Look at her song Telapatia, which you could still hear on Latin and hip hop radio four years after its release. Telapatia is arguably Calliucci's biggest hit. It has over a billion streams on Spotify. And it's easy to see why. Here there's a few things happening that we can attribute to the Kaliuchi's sound. So right from the get-go, we have spacey dreamlike synth pads and a kind of spacey production. Yeah, that's that synthy dream pop sound. Right.

And there's like R&B drums in there too. Kind of mid-tempo. It's like maybe in the 80s in terms of BPM, kind of slow. And, like, just taking it to time. Exactly. And her vocals come in delivering what we've come to know Calliucci's for. It's her voice. Yeah, it's super casual. Like, it kind of feels like you're just talking to her across the table.

You know, it's not, like, big over-the-top vocal. It's not whispered. It's almost just out of spoken volume. Very relaxed. I remember when we described Ice Spices rap flow as unbothered. Can we call this like unbothered singing? You always bring that up, Nate. I do, I do.

I have brought that up a few times. It really, it really affected me. Because that's, that's, that's the goal that we should all have is to live our life unbothered, you know. So, so I think it's, I think we respond to that when we hear it in music because it's very, that's very liberating. I'm sure it's not easy to do. Yeah. I'm sure it takes a lot of work to sound that unstudied.

She's moving very lackadaisically in the way that she's singing. while also making her vocals airy and sensual. I think they're quite lilting, and to do an esoteric comparison to fonts, right? Her voice isn't italic, per se. Like, I wouldn't say she has the same type of voice as, like, Siza, and the way that Siza is kind of singing in italics and kind of cursive. I would say Kelly Uchise's voice is kind of like an apple chancery font, right?

Sexy ornate and kind of has a little fling. I got to Google. You can't just, that's not like Times New Roman. Who knows Apple Chancery? It's classic, Nate. Come on. I'm looking at it now. It's, it's very attractive.

Yeah, it's got, what's it called? Seriffs, right? Mm-hmm. But they're very ornamented. Do you know Apple Chancery, Charlie? Is that a thing? No, I don't, but I honestly, to use my own extended metaphor of sitting across from the table, this kind of looks like restaurant menu font.

Yes. Like nice dining. font. But also you can see it at like the cheesecake factory. So it's nice but accessible. Nice but accessible. Yes, definitely. Okay, I think we got to come up with a new man. I feel like we're shating, we're viving Calliuchius a little bit by who wants to be compared to the cheesecake factory menu? I would. I would love that. Fair enough. I love cheesecake factory. Got a gift card right on my desk. Maybe I'm being, maybe I'm being a snob right now. Rianna's a fan. Okay, so this is her vibe. We got the Apple Chancery sound. It's unboggied.

It's laxidazical. How does this telepatia sound that she's established? How does this connect us to the new album? Well, the real beauty of Orchideas in particular is its ability to expand upon this calliuchi sound and incorporate different facets of Latin music into the sound that we've come to know her for. In this regard, I find the record very similar to Bad Bunny's Unveralano Sinti or Rosalia's Motomami. the way that all three records expand on these artists' sounds

to include the entirety of Latin music in their sonics. So let's take a look at a couple songs on this record and explore their different genres, shall we? Please. First off, we have my personal favorite on the record, DeMata. Wow. This is so fitting. I feel like one of the things that we didn't say about color choices,

she's also kind of like an Amy Winehouse. where she also draws a lot from the past. Her music does often feel a bit timeless, and this song, I feel, could be from 70 years ago. Yeah, I was not prepared for the kind of time-warp effect that this song gives us. Rihanna, like, what kind of references are we hearing here exactly? Well, this track is a great representation of the Bolero,

genre hailing from Cuba. And Calliou Juice has explored the sounds of, Bolero before, namely on the opener to see Miedo, La Luna Enamorada. Slow, sultry behind the beat. Oh, it's beautiful. What are some of the essential sonic signifiers of Bolero? Well, Bolero at its simplest is melodramatic romanticism. It's a very old genre that stems from the 1800s.

The first Bolero was written in the 1880s, and it's Pepe Sanchez's Tristas. That's a song whose title literally translates to sadness. And the lyrics talk about suffering and pain in the context of a relationship. Here's the version by Oving Lada and his orchestra. So in English, those lyrics we just heard mean, there is no proof of love that reveals how much I suffer and I suffer for you. So Bolero kind of centers on this idea of love is suffering. And Te Matta, being a Bolero song, it fits because the title literally translates to It Kills You. Devastating.

Yeah. So we're seeing the same kind of depressing romantic themes in this genre at large and in Te Matta. That rendition of Tristezas that we heard is more a beat than the usual Bolero, the version that Irving Lada is doing. More often than not, a bolero sounds like Te Matta, relying on strings and strong vocabler. to carry out the grandeur of the lyrics, which we could hear on the song's chorus. There was this nice moment at the beginning there where the strings chromatically descend just like a... Like you're sulking over, falling over, crying all the tears. Other famous boleros carry a similar power.

Here's Perfume de Gadenias by La Sonora Santanera. Temata is really great in this regard because it highlights the flexibility of Callie's vocal range and her vocal power. We start the song in a low register. Spoken, low alto. And then we move into her classic breathy head voice, the Apple Chancery voice, as we previously talked about. And the song culminates in a powerful chorus bolstered by whistletone harmonies, which you could hear in the background. There's some real belting in there, too. Cali.

You know those whole kind of big, powerful moments. I'm sorry. Are you okay? What? Gazuntite. That's German, Nate. Let's leave the singing to Calliuchis, Charlie. Okay, fair, fair.

Rianna, what do you think Calliuchis is trying to accomplish by including this Bolero genre in her release? It seems like it's like you were saying, sort of referencing this deep tradition of super romantic over the top vocals and kind of slow tempos and sad lyrics. How does it fit into the rest of her, like, more contemporary sound? I think it's speaking to that timelessness that Charlie mentioned earlier. It's connecting Callie to the genres that preceded her while also forging her new lane. And on this record, Callie places an equal importance.

on the genres of the past, as she does on the genres of the present. On the first single from the record, Mniquita, we move from Cuba to the DR, Dominican Republic, for her foray into Dembo. Oh, like, old-school Dembo. Record scratch. Okay, this is wild. When you said Dembo, I was expecting.

more of like a contemporary hard-hitting, like reggaeton kind of beat. But this is way more of the like 90s Jamaican dembo rhythms where you have these sort of cheap, plasticy synths. You have DJ scratching in there. The whole vibe is much more DIY production from another era. Yes. And I also think it's pretty current. I mentioned Motomami earlier.

And right off the bat on this track, I'm hearing similarities to Rosalia's Bicociito. Yeah, there's those cheap sense. The drums sound like they're from a 90s drum machine. They're like they're not good, but they're great. No, exactly. And both songs have those sonic similarities, while they also contain the high BPM and the Dembo rhythm, you know, the fast pace, more rhythmically intricate than reggaeton rhythm,

exactly, that we hear in a lot of Dembo tracks. I think the songs also are more similar metatexturally because there's interpolations at play in both tracks. Bicocito has an interpolation of the baseline from Buster Rhymes' song, Dangerous. So that synth line follows the same notes and rhythm as the bass line from Dangerous. Which is appropriate because the whole thing in demo music is the use of rhythms, which is literally the complete reappropriation of an already popular song and just putting it with a new melody on top.

So I love that they're sort of like blurring the lines of modern interpolation with traditional, you know, rhythm culture. I'm shook because how do these two sounds coexist on this record? Like this old school Bolero and this demo drum machine in your face track. Like, do these flow together or do they kind of just represent more of a, I don't know, postmodern pastiche that she's giving us here? I think it's more of the postmodern pastiche. I really like the phrasing of that.

I also think it's like a pastiche of the entire sounds of Latin America. In the case of Muniquita, it is a Dembo track, which is Dominican and Jamaican, as we previously talked about, but it also contains a nod to the Panamanian rapper Lorna and her hit Papi Chulo. Wow. That's a classic, and let's listen to Munikita. Fine. Now I'm starting to feel like Calli Uchis is doing a project, which is similar to how Beyonce

they built renaissance, where it's like, you're not just going to build an album with your favorite genres, but you're actually going to go and cite your favorite artists from those genres as a way of claiming authenticity. Yeah, and that's present even on the features of this track. Munequita features JT from City Girls, but it also features El Alpha. And the inclusion of El Alpha speaks to, I think, a larger statement on the record, because El Alpha, is known as the king of Dembo. Wow. Is it fair to say that she pulls this off

because she is so skilled at executing these different genres and she pays fealty to the originators by including them on some of these tracks? It's like, how is she able to incorporate all these diverse influences? She does it right. Yeah, and other songs on the record also include icons of their own right. I like an angel uses Pezo Pluma. A new icon.

We talked about Pesopuma on our Mexican regional episode, and his defining characteristic, which you can kind of hear here, is he has a very scratchy, abrasive voice. It's kind of like sandpaper. Here, Callie uses his voice to make it much more smooth. So she's using these icons, you know, El Alpha on a Dembo track and Pezzo Pluma, who's a new icon, in this new fun and exciting way. She's kind of beckoned him into this world that you established at the outset of the episode, Rien, of like this kind of laid back sensuality. kind of, it's cool to hear him maybe in the, you know, outside of his comfort zone, perhaps.

And speaking of inviting artists into this world of Calliuchis, let's take a look at the song, Labios Mordiditos featuring Raggedon superstar Carol G. Labios Moridos is interesting in a few ways. It features Carol G, a fellow Colombian artist. And it's also a regaton track, which is a genre hailing from Panama and Puerto Rico. She also, and this going back to what we mentioned before about Jamaica and rhythms, she also incorporates a famous rhythm from Jamaica about a minute and a half in to Labios Mordidos. Does that sound familiar?

Is that ringing any bells? It just happens for a second. Give to me one more time, Rihanna. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait a minute. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. Is it like a Toots and the Maitals thing?

What is that? Correct, Charlie. That is the Bam Bam rhythm. Yeah. Of course. Oh, Sister Nancy, right? Well, actually, so there's two bamb rhythms. It's easy to get confused.

I wanted to get one right, like Charlie, and I just face planted instead. This bam-bam rhythm comes from Toots in the Maitals, 1966. track Bam Bam. It was popularized, though, through the song Murder She Wrote by Chaka Demus and Plyers. Murder she wrote. Murder she wrote. Wow. Murder she wrote.

And the use of this rhythm is even more appropriate because the line that the rhythm comes after is talking about how Kelly loves women from across the diaspora. I love my Brazilians and my Colombians, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, I love my Mexicans. I feel like the sonics of this track support that lyrical idea of loving folks from all over Latin America because even though we have a reggaeton beat, the surrounding production feels like it's drawing from all kinds of other influences. You have that sort of wub-b-b-b-b bass going on. And then there's this really high-pitched stringed instrument, which it's kind of manipulated so I can't tell exactly what it is. Maybe it's like either an Andean Trango or a Colombian tipli.

I really like how this song incorporates so many sounds from so many different regions. Labios Mordidos is a great track. But to end, Orquedias, Callie takes a similar left turn on the track. Dame Bezo. Muevete. She's doing salsa. Wow. Love, yeah, cool. This is a sound we've never heard Callie do before, but her voice fits perfectly over the horns.

It fits, you know, and it's calling back to that timelessness, that Amy Whitehouse kind of vibe that Charlie, again, you talked about earlier. Halfway through Damme Besso, Muevete, she speeds the song up to a moringue, John. It reminds me of a similar structured song. song Despoes de la Playa by Bad Bunny. I was going to get that one, Charlie, just for the record.

I knew that was coming. I'm really determined to one up your Toots in the Metals knowledge, but we'll see if I have an opportunity. Sorry, Rihanna, please, go ahead. Play it anytime. Love that song.

And Bad Bunny, prior to releasing that song on Un Verano Sinti, had also never dabbled in salsa, merengue, and Mambo before. So, Callie, is doing the same thing, And on one track, she's bringing in multiple genres, multiple countries, culminating in a vibe of Latin music at large on the record.

But it's not just these diverse Latin American sounds that she's incorporating on Orchidias. She also nods to more global sounds, which we will get to after the break. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen days? different apps that don't talk to each other. Introducing O-DU. It's the only business software you'll ever need.

It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-D-4-Free at O-D-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-com. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue.

President Trump is now targeting predominantly democratic cities for ice raids and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want border at the border.

They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America and, Actually, every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. So there's even more to talk about on Oudquidias. Look at Caliuch's track, Dioca. What are you guys hearing here? Talk to me. Nate, why don't you take over?

Okay, what I'm hearing is the same now familiar calliuchus vocal, sensuous, breathy, lackadaisical. But now it's over this new texture that we haven't heard yet. And it's something not Latin American. And I'm very curious to hear where this is coming from. Well, you're right on the money, Nate, because this isn't a Latin America genre that she's playing in. And Diosa is an example of Cali dabbling in the African genre of a mappiano. And I'll be the first to admit. I'm not super familiar with a mappiano.

I talked to Rolling Stonewriter, Monca Perkante, who provided some insight as to where the genre comes from. So I'm a piano got, I think it's more so mainstream breakthrough in its country of origin, South Africa, around like 2019. But years prior, it was building and bubbling in Johannesburg and Pretoria, different areas in South Africa. And it really spread throughout the country there in a way that I think is like not as familiar to us. Like it was through Uber. It was like people were like hearing different songs, hearing people play different. songs. There's even a very popular alma piano song that has like Uber in the title from like around this emergence. And like people were spreading and sharing this songs like not like on like

Spotify or Apple Music, but through like MP3s and uploads to different websites that folks could access for free. When Amma Piano was first breaking through, it was largely instrumental and the songs were also very long. The Amapiano songs that I was introduced to early on are like seven, eight, nine, ten minutes long. Completely instrumental. No vocals. It's a descent. of South Africa's like strong and long lineage of house music. One of the South African house genres, there's Quato, which was developed in the mid-90s and popularized in the mid-90s as the country was moving away from apartheid. And it has this like really upbeat celebratory sound.

And it pulled like not only from house music but from hip-hop from jazz. There are elements of R&B, elements of disco around it. And so Amma Piano descends from Queto in its evolution of house music. And when the lyrics started to develop, like in Amma Piano that you can hear that's popular today, a lot of the cadences and some of the sob genres of Amma Piano feel like hip-hop, and that is connected to their lineage through Quito. I asked Monkapur, which she identifies as the genre's hallmark. sounds. So one of the things that I was noticed going through some of my favorite

Ama Piano songs is that each layer of the track is like introduced and given its own space so you can hear the song evolve. It often begins with a steady shaker, a common instrument used throughout African music, very steady kick drum, super, super consistent pace. I think that the most distinct characteristic of Amma Piano music is the log drum. So it's this deep, like hollow percussive sound. It can be programmed to sound a little different to have variation, and it can be like stacked in different layers, but it is like the hallmark of Amapiano. So we're hearing a mappiano is haousy and percussive, stemming from Quedo music. Monkoper hit upon three of the main elements of the mappiano, the kick drum, the shaker,

and the percussion. Let's see if we could hear those in the beginning of Diozap at Caliuchis. kick definitely four on the floor yeah there's a lot of background syncopated percussion that kind of a thing

yeah I think there's like a really soft shaker like a right so very subdued yeah very subdued compared to the more Latin tracks we've heard so far the other thing I hear is that synth sound

funk funk yeah that thing that thing that to me sounds almost like a really high pitched up log drum which is the other sound that we hear a lot in on a piano with a pitched drum that now in contemporary productions, this is synthesized tonal, quick, plucky kind of sound, often very bassy, but here

it feels like she's using it as like a pluck element, it's a high little synthesized thing. It's cool to hear this in the mix. You know, building on what I was saying earlier, maybe this represents something a little more subdued a little more like kind of a quiet storm vibe. And I feel like it's also indicative of this genre's growing popularity on the charts. Like I remember at some point, I don't know, at some point we've talked about a song that's very popular right now by Tyler called Water. And it's cool to hear Kalyuchis now expanding this.

a piano sound and pushing it further into like a u.s musical consciousness and also i feel like you had almost misspoken there for a second saying you know bringing this music into a u.s popular consciousness until i remember that when i spoke with calliuchis you know she is both american and columbian and uh when she wanted to start releasing spanish language music her label was initially not supportive because they thought well your audience is is u.s based like you don't you don't have you don't have a latin american audience so why would we take that risk on you. And clearly she's proving here that not only does she have a U.S.-based audience

and a lot of American audience, but she's reaching for a whole global audience. Going back to the Amapiano front, Callie has dabbled in Amapiano before. Look at her remix of Amaray's Sad Girls Love Money. I love that line. She whispered to us in a couple of languages.

It's incredibly self-aware of exactly what she's doing. She's got that unbothered, breathy vocal and speaking to us many languages. And the looseness of Calliuch's voice fits Amapiano well because it's light, it's silky, amapiano

is very deep house influenced, so since the beats are sitting in this smooth pocket, it seems natural to put the unbothered, smooth, silky voice over it. That's fit, yeah. Rihanna, you've taken us on this global tour

through not only like every part of Latin America musical, diaspora, but also moving into the world of South African Amapiano, is this musical experiment going to land in the same way that some of Kali Uchis' earlier hits will? Like, I guess what I'm asking is, this is really exciting musically. Do you think it will have that same commercial popularity that her, some of her earlier work has managed to achieve?

I think so. I feel like Kali Uchis' ethos as an artist. has expressly been to break down the divides that separate culture in music. She was recently profiled by the LA Times, and I thought this quote was really relevant. She said, to take telepitya to the Latin radio, the label told me I would have to use different drums. I said no, and the radio still took it. That means a lot to me because it means I can open doors for others and expand what it means to make popular music today. Our music can extend beyond the niche.

So I think this is something that she puts in to all of her music. And I feel like that ethos is what connects with people. It's her ability to cross all of these different genres and bring them together. And her latest album, Orquidias, just proves that. This episode is Switched on Pop is produced by me, Rihanna Cruz, edited by Art Chung. Our engineer is Brandon McFarland. Our illustrations are by Iris Gottlieb, community management by Abby Barr. and our executive producer is the shot curwa.

We are a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture. Which is a part of New York Magazine and you can subscribe to New York Magazine at New Yorkmag.com slash pod. Find us at Switch on Pop and social media and tell us what you're digging from Callie Uchis' latest record.

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