CARLA MORRISON – LIVESTREAM

It was never in Carla Morrison’s plans to make a comeback in 2020, but the pandemic changed it all. The GRAMMY-nominated singer-songwriter from Tecate, Mexico, who rose to the spotlight with her heartbreaking Spanish-language records, stopped making music for some years after realizing she wasn’t happy. In that time, she moved to Paris where she began to spend time in museums and learned a lot about herself—both as an artist and as a woman. She also thought of new music inspired by her newfound empowerment and new home, but didn’t see herself releasing it this year.

“When COVID hit, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I have this song called “Ansiedad” and I think it would be good for people to listen to this and I think it would be good to put music out now,”” she recently told GRAMMY.com via Zoom. “It was something that I already had in mind, but then it came to life because I wanted people to use my story as a mirror for the times that we’re living right now.”

“Ansiedad,” or “anxiety,” is one single off her new four-part project, which also features her latest track, “No Me Llames,” or “don’t call me.” The project touches on mental health, self-love, well-being and empowerment. Musically speaking, her revival leaves behind the sad, slow-tempo love songs she’s known for and experiments with upbeat pop sounds. The songs—together called Renacimineto, or “rebirth,” a name inspired by the renaissance paintings she spent time learning about during museum visits—tell “the story of how, when I went through a very dark time, I still came out in a better way,” she said.

She hopes the project is able to “give something to people,” too.

“This time, it’s been a very hard time for everybody. For me, it’s been a very hard time, even though I was already in a pause in my life, it’s still … It paused me even more than some,” she shared. “So I do feel like we can take that narrative back and be like, ‘OK, what do I want to do with this?’ Because it’s hard to imagine yourself in a rebirth when it’s all very sad, but I do feel like this is teaching us a lesson, and we just have to get the best of it.”

Through her performance alongside Puerto Rican icon Ricky Martin at the 2020 Latin GRAMMYs this Thursday (Nov. 19), she hopes she will inspire people as well: “I do believe that anything that I do becomes full of purpose when it can mean something to somebody else.”

Morrison spoke to GRAMMY.com about working with Martin on their song, “Recuerdo,” the ways her time away from the music industry helped her grow, the importance of mental health conversations in the biz and more.

Read the full interview on Grammy.com.