Alemor
Grammy-Nominated Latin Singer & Songwriter 

Sandeep Kulkarni (00:03.536)

Today's guest is Alemor, a Latin Grammy-nominated and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter whose music blends emotional honesty, cultural identity, and artistic independence into a sound that feels both intimate and global.

Suraaj Parab (00:21.708)

Welcome Alemor to the Artist Conversation.

Alemor (00:26.286)

Hey guys, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. That was a beautiful introduction of my music. Awesome.

Sandeep Kulkarni (00:30.982)

Well, it deserves that because your music is good. So we're so happy to have you. We want to start by asking you about your identity and your origin. You grew up between the very different energies of Bogota and Cartagena, and that contrast seems to live inside your music even now. How did those two worlds shape the emotional landscape of who you became as an artist?

Alemor (01:06.542)

I think in order for me to answer that question for you, I want to paint two different pictures. We would spend some of the holidays with my dad's family in Bogota. Bogota is actually a city that is pretty cold throughout the entire year because it's on a mountain, around 2,600 meters above sea level. It's a very different dynamic than Cartagena. Cartagena is a coastal city at sea level, and it has a very vibrant, vacation vibe. Bogota is a little bit more sober and calm. I remember being at my grandparents' house in Bogota for the holidays, listening to jazz music, and being very much on the calm side of the family.

When I would spend holidays with my mom's family, it was very loud, everybody was speaking at the same time, food was going around everywhere, and the kind of music we would listen to was very different. It was a lot of Vallenato and traditional folkloric music from the coast of Colombia. It was a very different dynamic. To answer your question by painting these two pictures, those two experiences lived within me very vividly. I'm very grateful for that because I have access to a variety of expressions, whether they are loud, festive, coastal, and Caribbean, or very sober, calm, and a little bit more put together. I think that's very present in my music. Within the same album, Beautiful Humans, Vol. 1, you can find the first track that is very much that vibe of having a family dinner where people can have a glass of wine, and then the last track of that same album is very much Cartagena.

Sandeep Kulkarni (03:42.534)

That's a great way you painted those two pictures, and I was visualizing it—the high altitude and the coastal vibe, and the music. That's great the way you describe it. Thanks so much for painting that picture. Did you say you were staying in both places or just visiting growing up?

Alemor (04:09.88)

Well, we would spend a lot of time in Cartagena because my mom's side of the family all lives there. Even to this day, everybody lives there. So I would spend a lot of vacation time—two to three months at a time—in Cartagena.

Sandeep Kulkarni (04:26.32)

Nice. Sounds beautiful. Now I want to go there.

Alemor (04:30.85)

Yes, you would love it.

Suraaj Parab (04:34.327)

That's very interesting, from Colombia to the United States. And actually you moved...

Alemor (04:40.194)

Yeah, and also, sorry to interrupt, but just a fun fact. I feel there are different accents in every language of every country depending on what region you are from, right? Bogota has a very specific accent and Cartagena has a very different accent. Whenever I would go visit Cartagena, I would have my accent from Bogota. My friends would tease me in Cartagena and say, "Oh, here's the girl from Bogota." So I started to learn how to imitate their accent so they wouldn't give me a hard time. Being a musician actually helped me with that because accents are just different melodies; you're just accentuating different parts of a phrase. I learned how to do that and avoided a lot of teasing when I was younger thanks to that.

Suraaj Parab (05:48.727)

Would you like to give us a little bit of a demo between these two accents? The Bogota one and the Cartagena one.

Alemor (05:56.27)

Okay, so when you are from Bogota, if I say, "It's very nice to meet you, my name is Alejandra," you would say: "Es un placer conocerte, mi nombre es Alejandra." That melody is very distinct. In Cartagena, you kind of take away some of the letters of the words. You don't say "es un placer," you say "es un placer." You don't use the 's'. There are some things that you kind of take away, or you would say, "un placer conocerte, mi nombre es Alejandra." Very different, and I just learned how to do it.

Suraaj Parab (06:51.121)

Very interesting. You actually moved to the United States at 11, which is such a formative age to leave one world and enter another. How did that transition change your sense of identity and eventually your voice?

Alemor (07:11.106)

What a great question. I didn't speak any English when I moved to the United States at 11, so that was a really hard transition. I remember being very upset at my parents for making that decision at that age. When you're 11, you're upset at everything anyway. But today, I'm very grateful to them because thanks to them, I have built the life of my dreams. There is no way I would have been able to make a living with my music in Colombia because the structure of the country doesn't allow for that.

Even though it was a difficult transition and I didn't know the language, I was exposed to types of music that I had never been exposed to before. I remember listening to R&B for the first time when I was around 11 or 12 and just not knowing what to do with myself. I was so excited to listen to more. I listened to so many albums by Norah Jones. I played Come Away With Me so much in my Discman that it started to burn out; I just destroyed it playing it so much. Even though it was a hard transition, it was very helpful to enrich the diversity of music within me. I went from not knowing the language to learning it, to now writing music in English. I think that's really powerful. One thing is to speak the language, another is to express yourself creatively in it.

Sandeep Kulkarni (09:34.72)

That is powerful. Especially for someone who came here at an early age, could not speak the language, and now expresses themselves in it, writes poetry in it, and conveys their feelings to the world. That must feel like a massive accomplishment right now, after all these years.

Alemor (10:05.75)

Yeah, absolutely. At this point, I don't think I can identify myself as a citizen of just one country. I feel Colombian, but I also feel like a Miami girl for sure. I've been here for 20 years. I think I have a dual identity in that sense, or just one identity, which is mine.

Sandeep Kulkarni (10:33.158)

Yeah, that happens to all of us. I came here 27 years ago, same thing. I had to leave everything. I came here to go to grad school, but everything was so new. I didn't have any friends. Normally people coming from India go to an engineering, business, or medical school. I went to art school because I was a visual artist. I was surrounded by all these people, but it's a different life. I was homesick because I was alone. My brother was here, but he had already moved for a job, so I was all alone, homesick, and didn't know how to make friends. But things happen, and now I feel so happy. I hear you when you say you feel Colombian but at the same time feel like a Miami girl. It's the same thing for me. Obviously my roots are in India, but I am Indian American now. Anyway, moving on—this is about you and not about us! You got me thinking and made me a little nostalgic when you said that.

You started writing songs at 14 after your first heartbreak, and it sounds like songwriting quickly became more than expression—it became a kind of healing for you. When did you realize music could hold emotion in a way nothing else could?

Alemor (13:19.052)

Nobody's ever asked me that, so thank you. You're making me think back to the moment when I wrote that first song. I think I realized music could hold that emotion when my first instinct was to write it down because I was feeling something that was too big for me to hold within myself. I feel that happens when you have a really big feeling, like a heartbreak, or even an overwhelming gratitude for being alive or having food to eat. When you don't know what to do with that emotion, you want to materialize it somehow, whether you draw or write it on a piece of paper. It comes out of your heart and you turn it into something you can touch and share.

I felt that the first time I wrote a song because I was so sad. I didn't know why the boy I liked didn't like me back; he didn't give me an explanation. I wanted to know why, so I wrote a song about it. In that moment, I thought I was the only one going through something like that in the world. Then, when I shared it with my mom, my friends, or my cousins, they would say, "Yeah, I've been through that before." I was shocked. From the very first time I wrote something, I knew there was something special about it as a healing process for myself.

Suraaj Parab (17:03.339)

When I was listening to your songs, I found that your work feels deeply introspective but never closed off. How do you balance writing from a place of vulnerability while still creating something other people can enter and recognize themselves in?

Alemor (17:33.56)

I don't write songs for them to be big hits. That's not a starting point for me. The starting point is always having something I want to materialize and express, and then hoping someone else will relate or connect to it. Even if it's just one person, I feel it's already done its justice. From the beginning, I don't write anything thinking it's going to be on the radio or in the Billboard Top 100. I write thinking that another human being can connect to it.

I also write from a space of understanding that we're going to die and nothing matters. There's no problem too big for me to let it contaminate my music because everything is so temporary. I don't really concern myself with what people are going to think. I think that's what makes it so welcoming and introspective at the same time—you relate, but you don't feel like I'm saying it from a place of ego.

Sandeep Kulkarni (19:24.294)

That's really nice. I have an Indian rock band project over here. Every time we write songs, we have the exact same mindset you just described. We never used to think about making something to reach millions of people. If one or two people resonate with what we are trying to say and how we portray it, that's enough. It really should come from within first. I hear what you're saying, because in today's world, a lot of people think otherwise. They think about what is trending, so they try to make a song to fit a specific genre or trend.

Alemor (20:44.192)

You avoid that by checking your motivation, right? Imagine you write, record, and release something you don't like just because it's trending, and then it goes viral. Then you have to perform it everywhere even though you hate it. That is so scary. I would never put myself in that situation.

Suraaj Parab (21:35.433)

Has that ever happened to you before—creating a song you didn't like but it went viral or trended?

Alemor (21:49.291)

No, because everything that I release, I love. That's how it should be.

Sandeep Kulkarni (22:05.102)

Listening to your music, a lot of it seems rooted in empathy, reflection, and emotional nuance. Do you think those qualities were always in you, or did music teach you how to live inside them more fully?

Alemor (22:29.486)

My music has been changing with me as I have changed over time. I'm sure the song I wrote when I was 14 was emotionally immature, just like I was at 14. What has helped me navigate my emotions, understand myself, and grow as a human being has been my life experiences, the teachers I've had, my therapist, and all the times I've asked for help when I needed it. All of that has allowed me to grow emotionally into a better human being, and I think that's reflected in my music. I don't think it's the other way around. I don't think my music healed that part of me. When I'm creating, it's the opposite: I have healed, and so I create this kind of music.

Sandeep Kulkarni (24:09.486)

Your sound really blends Latin, hip-hop, alternative influences, folk, and electronic textures. What does your creative process look like when you're piecing a song together, and how do all your diverse influences come together today?

Alemor (25:05.55)

Musically—meaning chord progression and melody—there's a lot more than just Bogota and Cartagena. There's that, and then there's me moving to the U.S. and listening to R&B, jazz, and hip-hop in English for the first time. Understanding the lyrics was powerful. Listening to Michael Jackson and understanding what he was saying was also massive. Whatever I am feeling in that moment dictates the music.

When I write a song, I always write all of the lyrics first without any sound. I know that's maybe not as common, but I like working on the words first because it's the first thing I listen to when I hear a song. We have to be very mindful of the structure of the language we use because words are powerful, and words within music are even more powerful. Everything I say in my music must have a meaning, a purpose, and a real, vulnerable motivation behind it. Even when you're writing a sad song and what you're saying is not necessarily beautiful, it is true. I write all of the lyrics first, and then I fit them into whatever chord structure and melody is flowing that day.

Sandeep Kulkarni (27:20.986)

I'm exactly like you; I write lyrics first. It's interesting because when you start working with different people, you have to adapt. Suraaj and I have done it both ways, but I still love the lyrics-first aspect.

Suraaj Parab (28:23.831)

I think it depends on your background. For me, coming from a piano and guitar background, whenever I hear a song, I hear what is playing underneath. Until I met Sandeep, I rarely focused on what the vocalist was actually saying. I know every single song by Metallica and Michael Jackson by heart, but if you ask me what the lyrics are, I couldn't tell you.

Alemor (29:04.046)

Well, I guess you guys are the perfect match! You don't get into his side of the work, and he doesn't get into yours.

When I was listening to your work, the album that struck me was Beautiful Humans. That idea of a "beautiful human" feels like more than an album title—it feels like a philosophy. What does that phrase mean to you, and why has it become such a central part of your artistic world?

Alemor (30:14.296)

"Beautiful human" is how I refer to the people who listen to my music. Instead of calling them fans or followers, I just started calling everyone a beautiful human. Around the end of 2022 and 2023, there was so much identity-based division. What I find interesting about identity-based characteristics is that most of the time, you don't choose them. I didn't choose to be born in Colombia, but I am part of a group called Colombians in the U.S. I didn't choose to be born with curly hair, or to have a mom from Cartagena and a dad from Bogota.

It is ironic that the characteristics we don't choose are often the ones subjected to discrimination. People might choose to be a bad person, to lie, or to cheat, but there's no systemic discrimination around those choices. When I saw such a heavy highlight on our differences, I wanted to be a source of light focusing on what makes us the same: we are all human beings, and I hope everyone has a little piece of beauty in them. That's how it started. The album itself is entirely made of collaborations with my friends and people I love writing songs with. It wasn't strategic or about social media numbers; we just wrote beautiful songs as friends and recorded them together.

Suraaj Parab (33:59.436)

You have built your career as an independent artist, and your projects feel incredibly cohesive musically, visually, and emotionally. What has artistic independence allowed you to protect that might have been harder to hold onto otherwise?

Alemor (34:20.514)

My masters. That is the material part of it. My masters, my time, and my creative freedom to release or not release something. There are no corporate deadlines. To be completely transparent, it usually happens whenever I have the funds to get it done appropriately. As an independent artist, funding your project is a unique challenge, but at the end of the day, it's my project. I have the final say on what happens with it, where it goes, where I sing, and where I don't. I like making those decisions for myself. I don't like answering to someone else when it comes to my music.

Suraaj Parab (35:36.759)

I share that exact trait. When I create something, I do it because I feel it a certain way, and I don't want to have to explain my choices to a corporation. I prefer staying on the independent side where I can make my own decisions.

Alemor (36:58.104)

Same. I have a lot of friends who signed with major labels and are having incredible careers, and I love to see them shine. But that is not the path for me right now.

Sandeep Kulkarni (37:16.678)

We are both from the independent side too. Your heart has to be completely in it. Like you said earlier, we are all going to die anyway, so you want to leave behind work that you are genuinely proud of, rather than just following a trend for money.

Alemor (38:01.526)

Even deeper than what we leave behind, it's about the quality of life I have right now. If my quality of life is going to be jeopardized because I have to answer to someone else or have uncomfortable conversations defending why I wrote a lyric with a specific chord, I don't want to do it.

Sandeep Kulkarni (38:48.494)

At the heart of your work is the belief that music creates a space for empathy. When people finish listening to an Alemor song or performance, what do you hope they carry into their own lives?

Alemor (39:15.192)

I hope they lose the fear to be themselves. As cliché as it sounds, it's incredibly powerful. I hope they don't postpone their happiness. I hope they call the people they love and tell them so. I hope they live a more conscious and beautiful life.

Suraaj Parab (40:02.347)

Thank you so much for spending this time with us, Alemor. We really appreciate the depth, tenderness, and intention you bring to your music.

Alemor (41:02.68)

Of course! I actually have time if you guys want to do one more question.

Sandeep Kulkarni (41:06.182)

Tell us what is coming next! What projects are you working on right now?

Alemor (41:15.665)

The original Beautiful Humans album is entirely in Spanish. Last year, I worked alongside an incredible songwriter and friend of mine, Pio Perilla, to translate these songs into English. This year, we are recording the English versions of these tracks. The music has already connected with so many people who don't speak Spanish, so I can't wait to see what happens when they can connect with both the musical and the lyrical aspects. Because the language shifted, it actually demanded entirely new musical arrangements for most of the tracks, so I'm re-recording them to fit the English phrasing.

Suraaj Parab (50:54.423)

This has been an amazing conversation. We've interviewed many artists, but we truly connected with you on a deep level. It didn't feel like a standard interview; it felt like talking to someone who thinks exactly like us.

To everyone listening, please go check out Alemor's work on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and all major streaming platforms. Follow her on Instagram, send her a DM if her music resonates with you, and share this episode with a friend. We will see you in the next episode of the Artist Conversation. Thank you!

Sandeep Kulkarni (53:18.951)

Thank you so much.

Alemor (53:20.066)

Yay! Thank you!