Por Vida

## Singles

1. "Know What I Want"
Released: November 11, 2014
2. "Lottery"
Released: January 13, 2015
3. "Loner"
Released: February 4, 2015
4. "Ridin Round"
Released: November 2, 2015

***Por Vida*** (originally titled ***Por Vida: Down For Life***) is the debut extended play (EP) by Kali Uchis. It was self-released on all streaming platforms on February 4, 2015 and made available a day before on her SoundCloud account. It features production from Tyler, the Creator, Kaytranada, BADBADNOTGOOD, among others.

## Background and development

Kali officially announced the EP on her social media and website on June 20, 2014. Prior to this, she began posting and giving clues about future new music on her posts. She released at that time some merchandise giving hints of the new era.

She began writing and recording the EP late in 2013 and the last productions finished in 2014, describing its composition as "summery". Before the release, she confirmed that she was not working alone for the EP, because producing, for her, is not an easy thing to do. She also said that a single with music video would come out sometime in late spring 2014. The single was later revealed to be "Know What I Want" and was released in November of that year.

On January 26, 2015, Kali announced the release date and uploaded on YouTube a teaser titled "A Glimpse Into Por Vida" that features snippets of "Lottery" and "Call Me". The tracklist was finally unveiled on February 1, 2015, on her social media.

The EP has strong 60s soul influences and reggae-like rhythms, emphasised by Kali's sultry vocals and the doo-wop undertones, similar to her previous project, the 2012 mixtape *Drunken Babble*, and has been described as a "dreamy, autobiographical" offering. It also has a great range of producers, which makes each song have a different essence.

## Reception

On AlbumOfTheYear, a collaborative and free review site, it was given a small review where users scored 10 out of 10. It got mostly good receptions with the third option "70-79" being the most voted .

Disbo, a verified profile on the site, opined:

> *"Kali Uchis's Por Vida is fucking awesome. Her performances are nearly flawless on here. There's a lot of somewhat weaker songwriting and some songs like Ridin Round and Sycamore Tree are just uninteresting (despite Sycamore Tree being an intro). I personally think the rest of the songs are incredible though. Such a fun EP nonetheless."*
>
>

## Promotion and tour

To promote the EP, Kali did a live show at the Dash Radio, hours after its release, where she sang her favorite songs from the project accompanied by Tyler, the Creator.

Kali gave the first live concert for the EP on March 2nd, 2015 at the music venue and nightclub The Echo, followed by her first little tours, Por Vida SXSW 2015 and East Coast Stops.

## Singles

The EP was supported by four singles, "Know What I Want" was the lead single released on November 11th, 2014, accompanied by a music video previously released. "Lottery" was released as a promotional single on January 13th, 2015. "Loner" was released on February 4th, 2015, hours prior the EP, and "Ridin Round" originally released on the EP, was reworked and released as a single with a music video on November 2nd, 2015.The first two singles were released only on iTunes, however, the whole EP and its singles are currently available on all digital music services. She also put a link on her website to download the EP.

"Know What I Want""Lottery""Loner""Ridin Round"
## Gallery

Standard ArtworkOriginal ArtworkTikTok Artwork

## Scrapped songs

Kali initially announced the EP as an album, but she cut a lot of songs. The following list contains all the known tracks scrapped from the final release.

### Key

* **Bold** indicates that the song was fully leaked online or officially released.
* *Italic* indicates that the song was never released and has yet to leak fully online.

### List

* "**All or Nothing**"
* "**Body Language**"
* "**Cocain*a***"
* "**Don't *Make Me***"
* "**Fireflies**"
* "*Guilt Trip*"
* **"Heading Home"**
* "**Hold U Down**"
* "**Honey Baby**"
* "*It's Fine*"
* "**Killer**"
* "*Lean*"
* "**Love Connection**"
* "*Never Over*"
* "**Pablo Escobar**"
* "**Rich**"

## Trivia

* "Killer" was reworked and officially released on her 2018 album, "Isolation".
	+ It serves as the fifteenth and final track.
* "Honey Baby" and "Pablo Escobar" were reworked into "honey baby (SPOILED!)" and "angel" and released on her 2020 EP, "TO FEEL ALIVE".

## References

1. ↑ https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/por-vida/id1081120588
2. ↑ https://soundcloud.com/kaliuchis/sets/por-vida-1?utm\_source=clipboard&utm\_campaign=wtshare&utm\_medium=widget&utm\_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Fkaliuchis%252Fsets%252Fpor-vida-1
3. ↑ https://www.albumoftheyear.org/album/27287-kali-uchis-por-vida/user-reviews/
4. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20150207191445/http://www.kaliuchis.com/porvida/