Kali Uchis Was Told to ‘Stick to English’ in Her Music. She Refused

If Kali Uchis had listened when she was told to only sing in English so her music would be more marketable, the artist might not be the star she is today. In a new cover story for Billboard, Uchis revealed that she was told earlier in her career to pick a language — but felt it was a disservice to do so.

“People kept telling me to stick to English, that it was easier to sell music that way,” Uchis told the publication. “I’m not going to just keep making music in one language because it’s easier to sell. I’m going to do both because I can do both.”

She continued: “I always felt that [not] utilizing everything that God gave me into my art is the same as spitting in God’s face. Why would God have made me bilingual? Why would God have made me with this duality if I wasn’t meant to project it into my art and use it to inspire other people and to create with all of this that I have?”

Uchis has found wide appeal switching between English and Spanish, earning her biggest hit with the Spanglish song “Telepatía” from 2020’s Sin Miedo album. She later found a second massive hit with “Moonlight,” which is fully in English from 2023’s Red Moon in Venus.

The singer has made it a tradition to release albums in both languages: her 2018 debut Isolation was in English, followed by Sin Miedo and Red Moon in Venus, then Orquídeas in Spanish in 2024, and most recently, Sincerely, in English this year.

“I had a lot of opportunities missed because I feel like nobody ever thought that this would get to this point,” she said. “A word that people used a lot was ‘unique.’ At the time, those aesthetics weren’t really popular. … I don’t think that people were ready for what I was doing.”