Kali Uchis has always made music that felt like a whisper between worlds. But with her new album Sincerely, the Colombian-American artist offers something more intimate, more sacred — a vulnerable sonic offering born from motherhood, mourning, and self-reflection.
Released just months after welcoming her first child with longtime partner Don Toliver, and shortly after the passing of her mother, Sincerely, is both a love letter and a eulogy, a personal archive of emotion wrapped in meditative R&B, spiritual overtones, and ambient soul.
“I really did make the music that I needed for my grieving process,” Uchis says. “It’s the most emotionally raw album I’ve ever made.”
She began writing the 14-track project before she knew how deeply she would come to rely on it. Inspired by nature, nostalgia, and her bicultural roots, the songs were conceived like handwritten letters — addressed to loved ones, future selves, and the parts of her that needed healing.
The album opens with “Sunshine & Rain…” — a track that samples a real voice message from her mother: “Good morning, sunshine.” Sent to her newborn grandson before her diagnosis, the clip now immortalizes her in Uchis’ work, an audible keepsake that sets the tone for the project’s emotional weight.
Songs like “Daggers!” and “ILYSMIH” were written in her most tender moments — the latter while Uchis was still in her hospital bed, cradling her newborn, phone in hand, melodies forming without music. And then there’s “Heaven Knows”, which eerily predicted the coming grief with lines like “Look into the clouds, see a smiling face…”, written just a month after finding out she was pregnant.
“It’s almost like I wrote the music I needed before I even knew what was going to happen,” she reflects.
The album was completed before the holidays, with contributions from Dylan Wiggins (Rosalía, Miguel) and Vegyn (Frank Ocean), yet the writing remained deeply solitary. “I don’t usually follow one process,” Uchis says. “But this time, a lot of it came with no music — just me, in silence.”
Despite the deeply personal content, Uchis resisted the pressure to become more palatable for mainstream success. “It would be easier to just be agreeable,” she admits. “But I’m taking the longer road because I want to stay true to who I am — and that includes my culture, my emotions, and my story.”
From her bilingual releases (Isolation, Sin Miedo, Orquídeas) to genre-bending experimentation, Uchis has always danced between worlds — Latin and Anglo, underground and pop. But with Sincerely, she offers a spiritual evolution, something private turned public through courage.
“I used to think I was cursed by my family’s trauma,” she confesses in the album’s closer. “But now I know — I’m here to break the curse.”
Still, she’s cautious about how much of herself she reveals. “There are still things I need to keep sacred,” she says softly. “But I no longer want to pretend like my pain hasn’t shaped me. This album is my truth, and I hope it gives people a sense of comfort — the way it gave me.”
Sincerely, Kali Uchis
1. “Heaven Is a Home…”
2. “Sugar! Honey! Love!”
3. “Lose My Cool,”
4. “It’s Just Us”
5. “Territorial”
6. “Silk Lingerie,”
7. “Fall Apart,”
8. “All I Can Say”
9. “Daggers!”
10. “For: You”
11. “Angels All Around Me…”
12. “Breeze!”
13. “Sunshine & Rain…”
14. “ILYSMIH”