Kali Uchis’ forgotten mixtape.
An unfiltered glimpse into Kali Uchis' adolescence through her unreleased, first album.
album artwork believed to belong to either the publisher of the work or the artist.
To all you Soundcloud warriors, here’s another album to listen to with ad interruptions every thirty seconds.
From the rubble of r&b/pop-star Kali Uchis’ troublesome adolescence, Drunken Babble, her first project and the predecessor to the Por Vida EP, was born. This dreamy, premature mixtape was produced on GarageBand in the confinement of Uchis’ car that she was living in after being kicked out of her home at 17 years old. On August 1st, 2012 she released it on DatPiff, an online audio distribution platform popular among the hip-hop and rap scene in the early 2000s. The EP quickly gained traction and caught the attention of artists like Snoop Dog, Gorillaz, and Tyler, the Creator, who she worked with later on. Upon seeing the popularity her project had gained by late 2014, Uchis removed it from platforms out of embarrassment. She never intended these rants about her personal life framed into songs to reach so many ears. Uchis said to WAMU in a 2012 interview that she was hesitant to release Drunken Babble in the first place because “maybe it’s too real,” claiming that she was “literally just crying on the joint.” “I’m saying everything that’s hurting me and bothering me,” Uchis said of the EP, “I didn’t make it for people to hear.” While one can sympathize with her concern that Drunken Babble is underdeveloped or rushed, it arguably presents the purest form of her essence as a musician.
Drunken Babble introduces listeners to an unobserved side of the confident, sultry Kali Uchis who rose to fame. Through DIY beats, vintage sounds of soul, doo-wop, and hip-hop samples, and vocals recorded on a flimsy microphone purchased from a classmate, Uchis constructs a melancholy dream state for unintended listeners. The project covers general themes of insecurity, angst, and love that narrow into more particular depictions of rejection, feeling helpless in relationships, and explicit allusions to running away from home. Uchis cherry-picks sweet, nostalgic melodies, accompanied by vintage feeling elements and a recurring muffled voice most notable in Chimichanga, Mucho Gusto, and Table for Two.
It’s important to mention that Drunken Babble is not a particularly well-made album, but rather a heartwarmingly authentic depiction of Kali Uchis as a quirky teenager, struggling to find her place in the world. There is an overwhelming charm to the EP’s rawness. For the most part, Drunken Babble consists of vocals plopped on top of looped vintage music samples. The awkwardness of the musical construction emphasizes the awkwardness emulated through her lyrics. Uchis uses her words to grieve her tense relationship with her parents, complain about a boyfriend wanting to break up, and grapple with other seemingly adolescent issues. We see a young, troubled girl, reminiscing on past lovers, questioning where she fell short as a person, and begging for understanding from her family. Certain songs, such as “Table for Two,” convey an air of self-pity. Meanwhile, songs like “Honey Baby,” which reflects on her hardworking nature as a Colombian immigrant, show admirable self-value in other aspects of her life.
To me, “Table for Two” is the star of the mixtape. It is the fullest depiction of early Uchis’ affinity for all things vintage, particularly 1950s-70s aesthetics, which we see in the “Table for Two” music video. The music video starts with her somberly laying in bed, singing the lyrics into a rotary telephone with a pastel pink tint overlaying the entirety of the video. “Table for Two” samples the soul classic “I’m Still Here” by The Notations, released in 1971. This ballad envelopes you as you melt into the romantic rhythm, and before you know it you’re being lulled into a dream state. This is drag-your-feet-when-you-walk music, sit-in-bed-all-day music, which we see increasingly less with each of Uchis’ releases as she progresses into more pop and reggaeton-oriented productions.
Honorable mentions include “Chimichanga,” another melancholy tune. Sampled from “Khaar” by Kourosh Yaghmaei, this song perfectly depicts brashness and irritability dimmed by the exhaustion of being constantly badgered. Uchis sings:
I don't care
I'm like, what now?
Insult me, I'm like no, ow
In a hot springs, no towel
Adiós, baby
Bye, ciao
She never raises her voice, or even changes her pitch, but rather floats at a monotone cadence throughout the full song. Listeners grasp a sense of helplessness, almost as if Uchis was too tired to even make the song. The album isn’t riddled with metaphors or symbolism, but instead relays Uchis’ personal issues and feelings explicitly, giving the project an even more amateur feel. We hear the unrefined thoughts of a seventeen-year-old girl.
Other songs, such as “Good to You,” “Mucho Gusto,” and “MULTI” drift from the bedroom pop pattern as more rap-heavy pieces with either features or Uchis herself rapping. Additionally, “Pablo Escobar” and “Honey Baby,” which were eventually dropped as “angel” and “honey baby (SPOILED!),” respectively, on the TO FEEL ALIVE EP, have a much more upbeat lo-fi-pop feel. Drunken Babble quickly becomes a very versatile project, uncovering various sides of Uchis’ creative vision.
Drunken Babble is important to understanding Kali Uchis’ work as a whole, in that she rarely unveils this side of her artistic persona throughout the rest of her discography. Uchis’ take on melancholy, typical ‘sad girl’ music is valuable because her early work wasn’t created with intentions of fitting into a micro-genre, but rather of authentically piecing together the niches of Kali Uchis’ mind at the time. Personally, Drunken Babble is significant because it communicates a sense of being a ditzy, directionless teenager. If it ever feels like there’s a fog masking your future and you can’t imagine where you’ll be within the next year or two or what the future has in store for you, Drunken Babble allows you to relish in your own oblivion. This project is the epitome of the sweet and innocent yet disenchanting and debilitating nature of adolescence.
Ironically, Uchis herself is not a fan of threading Drunken Babble into her work as a whole. Uchis said to The Standard in a 2020 interview, “I hate when people refer to that as my introduction to the music industry. It’s not that I think it’s bad. There are songs on there that have tons of potential. But I just made this music overnight. It’s like somebody taking your notes and saying they’re your final project.” Ultimately, she did release this three years before she was ready to release her first professional production, the Por Vida EP in 2015. Although Uchis doesn’t want Drunken Babble to be considered her debut or a part of her musical career, it blends seamlessly into Por Vida. They aren’t fundamentally different. Por Vida is a continuation of her coquettish vocals with romantic melodies setting the backdrop for primarily melancholy love songs. I personally view Por Vida as a refined version of what Drunken Babble could have been. It seems that Uchis had a clear idea of what her creative vision was from the beginning and executed it partially with limited resources and time in Drunken Babble, in its fullness in Por Vida, and finally into something else for Isolation.
Nonetheless, Drunken Babble is an unequivocally significant work in Kali Uchis’ progression as an artist, whether or not it should be considered as her initiation into the industry. This EP is the hug that every angsty teenage girl needs.
edited by Eva Smolen.
album artwork believed to belong to either the publisher of the work or the artist.