Kali Uchis Joins The Neo-Soul Pantheon With Isolation



Kali Uchis opens Isolation with a breezy Brazilian-jazz intro, psychedelic and motoring, as she coos birdlike about physical intimacy. Rio singer/goddess Flora Purim immediately springs to mind, and its ambitious vocal runs invoke cocktails and caftan weather, like Uchis recorded it by the beach. It’s an empathetic way to welcome a listener into an album, but more than that, it’s a statement piece: pointed evidence of the way she’s deepened her range en route to her debut album. “Just come closer, closer, closer,” she intones. Kali Uchis did not come to play. The 23-year-old Colombian-American singer has spent the last six years in the flourishing landscape of West Coast soul. She was often compared to Billie Holiday for her resonant alto and ability to imbue a dreamy love track with a wistful melancholy without giving up any of her power. That quality naturally invited comparisons to Amy Winehouse, too, but Uchis is slightly more plain-sad than self-destructive. Her ability to shimmy between genres has been exemplified by her omnivorous taste in collaborators—Snoop Dogg, who helped put her on in 2014, Colombian superstar Juanes, and Miguel, with whom she sang one of the best tracks on his 2017 album, War & Leisure. She has a baseline in R&B and often veers into the territory we used to call neo-soul. But Isolation projects how far out there she’s willing to go, exploring doo-wop, funk, bedroom pop, and reggaetón with equal enthusiasm and reverence while painting a fuller picture of herself as a dreamer, the femme fatale with around-the-way swagger who takes no shorts.

Watch the video here:

What do you think about this. Let us know in the comments.

Comments