Emerging Italian-Mexican singer/songwriter Bu Cuarón unveils her first track “Viceversa” from her forthcoming EP, Drop by When You Drop Dead.

To say speaking with Bu Cuarón is a masterclass in leaning into your passions would be an understatement. The 20-year-old singer/songwriter has grown up surrounded by a mixture of cultures and creatives. With acclaimed filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón as her father, Cuarón embarked on her creative journey early in life, mastering the piano at the age of four and later delving into the violin and guitar. At just 13, she began producing her own music using GarageBand. This forthcoming EP marks her first major music endeavour since her 2019 release “Psycho,” praised by NPR for its “wisdom and emotional depth well beyond her years.”

Now, she’s beginning 2024 prepping for the release of her forthcoming debut EP, Drop By When You Drop Dead. Drawing from a lifelong devotion to music, the six-track EP embodies a captivating blend of electronic indie pop, hip-hop, and acoustic nuances, with lyrics presented in English, Spanish, and Italian. Cuarón’s musical style transcends traditional boundaries and, with this EP in particular, sees her leaning into her knack for music production.

Bu Cuaron engages in a conversation with 1883 and dives into the making of debut EP, what it’s like having Synesthesia, and more.

Let’s start talking a bit about how you first got into music. What started your interest in making music?

I started playing the piano when I was four. I always sang. I was that little annoying girl that was always singing. I did the Conservatory in Italy and I lived there for seven years. When it was classical training, I hated it but now I am super grateful that I did it because it gave me a base. I started writing my first song when I was five. It was an amazing song called “I Like Strawberries” and I made the music to it on GarageBand. I always made little songs on GarageBand but I would never write a full song. So, when I was 12, I was always frustrated with myself because I couldn’t write a full song. When I was 13, I wrote my first full song and I was so happy about it and I produced it on GarageBand and everything. At 14 I switched to Logic, the professional basic Apple software for production, and I got a microphone for Christmas and I started producing music and making music all the time. I was an emotional and hormonal 14-year-old and wrote a lot of songs.

But you didn’t call them “I Like Strawberries” again. [Laughs]

Unfortunately not. [Laughs] That was too happy compared to what I make now, unfortunately.

Do you have any favourite songs from back then that you wrote? Or any favourite lyrics?

I wrote something that says: “Me preguntaste por qué me fui, todo el mundo me preguntó por qué me quedé.”

I wish I understood. [Laughs]

It means: “You asked me why I left, everyone asked me why I stayed.” When I wrote that, I felt so sassy because I felt like I accepted that I was better than him and that my life was bigger than the guy I liked at the time. I felt very proud after writing that song. I made that for a school project and I made the production at 16 and finished writing it when I was 17.

And you said that you are going to uni? Do you study something with music? 

No, I study philosophy, politics, sociology and psychology.

I just asked because I know some of my friends went to BIMM. Which uni do you go to?

I go to UCL.

So cool, I went to UAL.

I have so many friends there. My best friend goes there. What did you study?

Fashion journalism!

Oh, yeah. Super cool.

Let’s dive into “Viceversa” a little bit. It’s from your upcoming debut EP, Drop by When You Drop Dead. what’s the story of the song?

It was one of the first songs I finished producing on my own and one of the first songs I wrote in Spanish. I also was in an era where I was experimenting with electronic sounds because I’d grown up with organic instruments my whole life. I started experimenting much more with that and I became very inspired by it. As Daft Punk would say: “this is the sound of the future.” I love synthesizers and I got super excited over them. So, I started experimenting with them and vocal effects and at the same time and I started writing down quotes I like on my phone. I ended up writing the second verse after something had happened with a guy. I feel like it made it so much better because I put real emotion and narrative into it because I was genuinely saying something to someone.

How do you feel about the whole release? Are you nervous, or excited?

I’m super excited because I make music every day and I have a lot of it. I feel this is like a taster. I can show different types of worlds and this is like one specific world, if that makes sense.

On the EP, you mix English, Spanish and Italian. What drew you to using all of the languages for the EP?

I’m Italian and Mexican; I speak Spanish with my dad and Italian with my mom. They’re just things I have in me, I speak all three every day. The music I grew up with, although I grew up in Italy, it’s always been a mix, but the main artists I was super inspired by were mainly in English. I feel like it’s a universal experience where we emulate what we listen to and are inspired by and that was the case with me. I always wanted to make music and Spanish and Italian, I think that’s also the nature of who I am as a person. You lived in London so you know how many languages people speak and that works so well for my brain.

Tell me a bit more about the process of creating the EP. Do you have a favourite memory?

I guess I was experimenting a lot with sound. I have something called Synesthesia, they say it’s a condition but it’s basically when you associate colours with something or see colours. For example, my friend eats food and she sees colours, whereas I see people with colours, if that makes sense.

What kind of colour do you see on me?

A little bit of yellow and green.

Is it like an aura that you see?

No, it’s not on you. You can hear it from your voice.

That’s interesting.

It would be nice if I ever saw you in person. I feel like I would have a better idea. I don’t know if you’ve seen the cover of the EP, but the colours on the Rubik’s cube represent the colours I saw with the songs. I made sure there weren’t two red songs or that they all had their single colour.

And what about the titles of the songs? I saw “Paris” for example. I’ve got the EP in front of me right now. I was so excited to listen to it, but then I didn’t understand anything because I don’t speak Spanish. I should learn it though. That’s one of my resolutions.

It became the number one language in the world about two weeks ago, did you know that?

No, but now I should learn it. I’m using Duolingo to learn all my languages.

I’m using Duolingo to learn Esperanto. It’s a language that was invented before the Second World War because they wanted a universal language for the world so they invented it. This guy in Hungary spoke nine languages and he created this language and there were newspapers on it and stuff. It got banned during the Second World War because the creator of it was Jewish as well so it became something you couldn’t do. The speakers were sent to concentration camps and the only reason why it survived is because they were speaking it and the soldiers there thought they were speaking Italian. It stayed in the world and it’s not a language people speak but it’s super weird and quite interesting.

I’m also going to look that up. I’m learning so many new things. I also know that your dad is a director of one of the amazing Harry Potter movies. How does he inspire you?

I think my family inspires me every day. I make music with my brother, for example. I was just surrounded by film and different types of music growing up and I was very excited. The thing I’m most grateful for is how much I was exposed from a young age to different genres of everything. I think there’s this culture a lot of the time with women where they think they want to do something but it’s hard to take the next step because there is this social idea that it’s not the position of a woman to do that. My dad always pushed me to be independent and to do things on my own and I think that’s why I started producing my music on my own because he was like, “You want to have the song produced, produce it yourself.” As much as I sometimes wish things had gone in a different direction, that gave me complete artistic independence and also a whole palette for my taste and what I wanted. He always pushed me to own up to my things artistically. It could be three am on a school night and he’d say, “Go to bed.” I’d reply with “I’m writing a song” and he would say that’s fine. Artistic expression at home has always been a very important thing.

You mentioned you make music with your brother, what’s that like?

I think we inspire each other for sure. I feel like a lot of musicians understand this but it’s not necessarily about a specific sound melody or a physical part of it, but an energy you can share with someone you’re working with. I think that with my brother it’s very strong because there is no bias. He has no bias in the way of who I truly am because there’s no mask there. Not that I would ever try to put one on, but he doesn’t have to try to get through, it’s there. Also, from a sound perspective, he’s a genius. He has perfect pitch. You play him anything and he can immediately play it on the piano. Working with someone who was just born talented is fun and someone who gets what you like and don’t like is great. Also, we can take the piss out of each other and say, “I don’t like that song!”

Yeah, that sounds like fun. And did he help you a lot with your EP?

No, because he’s focusing on animation. When I was doing it, I was very independent. I didn’t want to listen to other people’s opinions, I just wanted to know if people enjoyed it or not or if it was a personal thing. After that, I started making a lot of songs with him and he started getting into music more. He’s so much more skilled at the piano than me so it inspires me like crazy. He never fails to be honest and I think sometimes we put masks on ourselves. I don’t think he tries to but I can’t put one on with him no matter what the context is. I think that makes music more vulnerable and real. It’s not just writing with him, just having him in that room. It’s someone who knows you so deeply.

What would you say is your favourite song of the EP if you could pick one?

I think it changed because I heard them so many times that I started hating them. For six months, I decided I was not listening to them. “Come For Me” strikes a chord because I wrote it when I was 16. I meant what I said at the time, and I wasn’t thinking about what was right or wrong to do in a song. I just had to put pen on paper at that moment and it felt super real. That’s a song that inspires me still because it makes me want to write more honestly — not that I wasn’t honest — but to keep that level of authentic frequency.

Are there any artists that inspire your songwriting that you look up to?

Yeah, growing up I was super inspired by James Blake and was a big fan of The Beatles. They genuinely were my world. And Jessie Reyes, from my point of view of songwriting, was super influential on me when I was 15. When Billie Eilish was first starting out when I was younger, she was super inspiring for me. Also, I love Tyler the Creator; I love his way of mixing and creating a genre for each album but also making a concept album and linking colours to the music and clothes. The way he interlinks all of that is so awesome to me.

What inspired the title Drop By When You Drop Dead? What does it mean for you?

There were two options that I liked for the name. For some time, I never felt super sure of it. I was in Venice at the time, my dad was shooting something a year ago. He was telling the story of how he was in India and how he passed by this funeral place where they keep tombs, and this had nothing to do with the story. He was just going on and saying something, and then said, “Drop by when you drop dead.” I thought that sounded so cool, that is gonna be the name of my EP. He questioned it, but when i heard that, I felt super stuck to it. There’s a certain darkness to that, but the way it sounds is fun. There’s a bit of a mix of dark and light on the EP.

Yeah, that’s a cool title. It sticks with you. The EP is a bit of a mix between indie pop and hip-hop with a lot of acoustic elements. Would you ever explore another genre of music?

I’m always striving to experiment and try every genre I possibly can. Something I’ve been keen to do is Mexican cumbia which is a very traditional type of Mexican music. I feel like I’ve been digging into traditional music and learning how to work with it and I’d love to make something like that.

So cool. With your range of languages, you can do that. I also want to learn more languages because I only speak English, German and a little bit of French but that’s it.

That’s amazing. That’s perfect!

I feel like you learn the language best when you’re really in the country and you’re forced to speak it. I lived in Paris for a little bit and so many people there don’t speak English so I was forced to speak French and I couldn’t be shy about it either.

Yeah, but also if you say something wrong they say it to your face. You have to say it perfectly. They’re very honest. That’s so cool. You speak so many languages.

There could be more, I’m learning right now. You have such a mix of different cultures. Now you live in London. How do you think London inspires you?

I was born in London and I grew up here, but I also grew up in a small town in Italy. Growing up in Italy, I grew up with a lot of nature in a small town, not a big city. Big cities were a big deal for me. I think there’s something about that small-town mentality that is so kind of frustrating when trying to grow up and trying to expand yourself. I think there was a part of me where I was writing music where I felt like when I was writing a song, it would make me feel like I was breaking outside of that periphery or box in a way. Then, in London, what I love is how big it is and how much you can blend in and the amount of fashion influence. The mesh of cultures is amazing and that is super inspiring for me not only from an energetical perspective but also from a cultural and learning history perspective, which I think is super important.

I’m super grateful for growing up where I did because Italian culture gave me a lot and the cherishing of culture was super important. As much as I haven’t lived in Mexico, I grew up going there all the time to see my family multiple times a year and it inspired me like crazy. My brother and I always talk about how the beach in Mexico inspired us a lot.

I haven’t been yet but this year is going to be my travelling year. I also grew up in a small village and I could never imagine going back. London changes you and it’s so inspiring and there are so many cool people. What else is happening for you this year? Other than the release of the EP?

So the EP comes out with a music video that I directed. I directed three different videos and for this one Emmanuel Lubezki is the cinematographer for it. Hopefully, I do more shows. I would love to do more live because that is very energetic. I would love to create more music videos not only for myself, but I think for other people because that is fun. Being in front of the camera and behind was somewhat difficult, but I feel like doing it for someone else would be fun.

Have you played in London before?

No, I haven’t but I’d love to. There’s nothing better than live music. The way you connect with their music is another level.

Do you have any dream venues to perform at?

I guess in the most delusional world Foro Sol in Mexico City would be cool. It’s a big venue where a lot of iconic artists have played. I think that’s my favourite. There’s one in London actually in Shepherds Bush. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Shepherds Bush Empire.

Yeah, it’s that one. I saw Billie Eilish there. I’ve seen Tyler the Creator there and I love that venue for some reason. I was obsessed with Shawn Mendes when I was 12, I think my first concert was there I believe. I’ve seen so many of my favourite artists perform there. I would love to do a show there one day hopefully.

What else do you want to manifest for yourself this year?

I would love to get more and more into being behind the camera. I think that’s something that I felt when I was filming those videos. I felt passionate in a way that I hadn’t felt with music. I realized you could feel passion in different ways. When I did the videos, I felt a certain type of passion that I hadn’t experienced before. It’s almost like a new vehicle and I need to get those kilometres out of it because I just want to do it more.

Do you think that creating music or just being creative in any way connects you with your inner child a little bit?

I think that’s super, super important. As you say, manifesting is super important but also saying, “I’m going to do this.” I think the best way to do it is to imagine it happening and what does that image come with? It comes with certain colors, but also certain personalities in you. If you get there, you have to ask how you can get there. Part of it is also your personality and I feel like I love creating different characters and emulating people that I think are cool.

The older you get the more important it is to heal your inner child as well and do all the work. Sometimes you just need to imagine you see yourself as a little girl, and then you ask yourself: “Would you want this to happen to her, would you want to speak to her in the way that you’re speaking?” because I feel like creative people they can be hard on themselves.

I also think a child has less of an idea of what’s been told to them and about what’s right and wrong. They just do things out of love and I think that’s part of the childlike songwriting. I like going back to myself when I was 14 because I didn’t think what I was doing was right or wrong or whether people liked it or not. That’s something that I got when I was way older and once I understood that, I crushed it because there’s no point in making art if you’re going to make it for someone else. A child doesn’t think like that, they have this innocence. Once you do [make something] for someone else, it becomes content. I think there’s a big problem of an oversaturated market with content and things we’ve created to sell and I think we have to stop selling art in that way because that was never art in the first place.

I agree. Do you have anyone who you would love to work with? Who’s on your bucket list?

I think the people I mentioned earlier. I think Tyler the Creator would be one of them and James Blake. I love Rosalia as well. I love Travis Scott, I think his music is so fun and I feel like that’s one of the characters I sometimes want to emulate. I just love artists that have a certain character about them, almost like a theatre character.

If you could describe your EP in three words, what would they be?

It would be chaotic, colourful, and can I say, inner child? I feel like that’s what works.

What would you want the listeners to take away from the EP?

I think, genuinely, it’s something that I hope people have fun with. I think each song has different colours and different characters. Someone told me that women have to explore different parts of themselves like jeans, you don’t have to be one thing. I love doing that in my music and being different things and I hope that people can listen to it and can try different jeans on.

Where do see yourself in five years?

Five years. I don’t even know what I’m having for dinner tonight. [Laughs] I hope that I create a community that can connect with my music and the world I’m trying to create. I hope I’ll be doing a lot of shows.

What is something that you want to be remembered for? So, if you could leave a legacy behind? What would it be?

Secretly being a cat. No, I’m joking. [Laughs] Leaving a legacy behind is hardcore, that is a tough question. Time is so short. Do what you want. Write that song. Everyone needs to write at least one song before they die. There’s no excuse. Be a good person. Fight for what you love. It’s the basics but it’s basic for a reason because it’s the important stuff.

“Viceversa” is out now.

Interview Maja Bebber
Photography Alex G. Harper