From the jump, Kali Uchis was always singing about love on her massive hit, “Telepatía,” the lead single off of Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios. The self-proclaimed “feel good” track not only has fans around the globe singing the words, “Que se podría hacer el amor por telepatía” and blowing it up on TikTok, but it resonates with so many because for Uchis, the song came from “a very real place.”
As Kali spoke with Audacy’s Julia, the “Dead To Me” singer opened up about the emotional energy that was harnessed to create “Telepatía,” while also speaking to us about the process it took to release a wildly successful, fully bilingual, second studio album.
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When on the cusp of releasing “Telepatía” Kali “had no idea” that the song would become a viral phenomenon. “The whole project, in general, was a passion project for me,” says Uchis. She adds, “It was something that I did because I felt like I wanted to represent all those different sides and parts of myself, and when it first started blowing up on TikTok I thought it was just going to be for a few days or something.”
Now the record is boasting the title of the “most listened to Latin song globally, for this long and for this many days.”
The 26-year-old beams as she shares, “I’m super proud of it, and I’m really happy for all the doors that it's opening for other Latina women, because there’s no feature and even for smaller artists, because I’ve never had a song that got this level of support.”
Kali also explains that the success of “Telepatía” has opened up a global recognition of songs sung in Spanish and that “this song potentially could be making them want to get into other artists.”
Uchis has always done Spanish songs and included tracks sung bilingually on other projects, but Sin Miedo is the singer’s first project sung almost entirely in the language. For Kali, she says it made perfect sense for her to record her second album exclusively bilingual.
“I’m a firm believer that we should use the gifts that God has given us,” muses the Colombian-American artist. She continues, “and it's disrespectful to God to not use the talents and the gifts that we were given, and so I believe that God made me bilingual for a reason.”
Although Kali consistently heard negativity about releasing a bilingual, predominantly Spanish album, comments like “you’re moving backward in your career” or “you’re on your own if you do this,” never stopped the artist from firmly standing by her music.
She says, “It never once made me question if I was going to put it out because I figured even if it wasn’t successful it was what I wanted to do. And that’s what I try to base my whole life around. Life is short, so just do what you gotta do.”
Check out Kali’s full interview above.
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