No. 1s
How the Pandemic and TikTok Fueled the Success of Kali Uchis’ Bilingual Hit ‘Telepatia’
When Kali Uchis told her father she wanted to skip college to become a professional musician, his answer wasn’t quite what she had hoped for. “ ‘There are a lot of girls prettier than you and that have a better voice than you,’ ” Uchis recalls him telling her. “ ‘What would make you stand out from them?’ ” She wasn’t dissuaded. “ ‘Well, there can be a million girls more pretty than me and with a better voice than me,’ ” she answered. “ ‘But they’ll never be me.’ ” Today, it’s precisely that other-ness that has led 27-year-old Uchis — the bilingual, bicultural, genre-bending singer-songwriter whose vocals flow effortlessly between English and Spanish — to become an unlikely star with the song “Telepatía,” a trippy fantasy in which she sings of wa...
