Kali Uchis on Working With Peso Pluma and Karol G, and the Risk-Taking That Led to ‘Orquídeas’

variety.com:

Thania Garcia Kali Uchis has built her career on taking risks. With “Orquídeas,” her second Spanish-language album (and fourth overall), Uchis asks her collaborators — which range from global superstars Peso Pluma, Rauw Alejandro, El Alfa and Karol G to JT from the City Girls — to match her level of fearlessness, urging them to step outside of their comfort zone on a playground of pop, merengue, reggaeton, house music and more.

The record’s cover art — which references Prince’s 1988 album “Lovesexy,” among others — visually encapsulates where Uchis is in her life and career, some 11 years after releasing her first mixtape: in the center, with her naked body wrapped tightly in rope as a colorful palette of pastel orchids paints the empty spaces. “I loved the juxtaposition of the harshness of the rope and the softness of the flower,” she tells Variety. “I think the entire theme of this record revolves around that juxtaposition.” When she released her debut EP “Por Vida” in 2015, Uchis — born Karly-Marina Loaiza in Virginia to Colombian immigrant parents — defined herself as an outcast of mainstream pop for her unwavering effort to do things her way. “The scope of how the music industry views Latinas is so boxed, and tied into certain stereotypes — I’m speaking in regards to sound — that one of my main priorities has always been to express myself as freely as I can and be as creatively limitless as I can be,” she says. “I’m a Latina who makes music in English and Spanish.