NAME:
Bu Cuaron
ABOUT
“Music was always a constant in my life,” says Bu Cuaron. “I can’t imagine life without it."
She’s not yet 20 years old, but the singer/songwriter’s debut EP,Drop by When You Drop Dead, has been a very long time in the making. A thrilling, dynamic blend of electronic indie pop with hip-hop and acoustic styles, and penetrating lyrics delivered in English, Spanish, and Italian, these six songs reflect years of study, evolution, and experimentation.
Cuaron, the daughter of five-time Academy Award winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón, was encouraged to explore her creative talents at a very young age, learning to play piano at age four. After adding violin and guitar study, she started writing songs at 11 and by age 13, she was producing her own music using the GarageBand app on her
brother’s iPad.
She rattles off a list of artists who inspired her as a young listener—Billie Eilish, Jessie Reyez. Daniel Caesar, Frank Ocean— all of whom were upending conventional pop sound and structure. She points to James Blake as someone who“ shifted my paradigm ,”especially the 2011 song“ I Never Learnt to Share.”
“I heard that song when I was 11,” she says. “It goes, ‘my brother and my sister don't speak to me, but I don't blame them,’ and it just keeps repeating that and the production changes. That's when I was like, ‘I want to experiment on GarageBand,’ and then I started making more weird stuff.
That exploratory approach defines Drop by When You Drop Dead , with tracks that continually shift and surprise, from the dramatic stop-and-start rollercoaster of“ Come for Me” to the rapid-
fire lyrics of the infectious, ukulele-powered singalong“ Sweet Face.”
“A lot of my songs have different structures,” says Cuaron.“ It's kind of like you learn the rules so well that you have to break them in order to feel like they're yours.”
Cuaron’s music was introduced to the world after she was invited to record some of her
songs in a real studio. A mixer on the session introduced her to someone who was working in
the next room—Grammy-winning producer Theron Feemster, whose credits
include Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, and Dr. Dre. They cut a song that she had
started while “not paying attention in class”; the result, titled“ Psycho,” was included on the 2019 album Music Inspired by the Film ‘Roma’ (a companion to her father’s Oscar-winning movie) alongside tracks by such artists as Beck and Patti Smith.
“Meeting Theron as a 14-year-old, I was like,‘Oh my God, this is the best day of my life,’I was freaking out,” says Cuaron. “But I always imagined things like that. I was never like, ‘Oh, I hope
I make it,’ I was like, ‘No, it's gonna happen, I'm gonna find a way. Since I was four, I've always had this big-picture mentality. Even things that are happening now were in my head since I was born.”
Cuaron’ s unusual family (her mother, Annalisa Bugliani, is an actor and journalist) and arts focused upbringing encouraged her expression and left a huge impact. “From my mom's side, I was constantly painting, we used to make oil paintings together,” she says. “And from my dad's side, we had a family iPod with all the music he loves—The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who. was constantly listening to it, and I became obsessed with all those bands.
I grew up being taught about the past and how art is a portrayal of the era we're living in or an era of history,” she continues. “It’s how we've always understood historical events and the sociological ideologies behind them. So growing up in a creative environment was definitely one of the greatest things—but since I don't know what it would be not to have that , I wasn't as grateful for it.”
Cuaron recently made her live debut at Italy’s La Prima Estate festival, and also discovered some new inspiration when she directed music videos for three songs on the EP.“ I love film,” she says.“ But I was very pushed away from it, because I always felt like it was someone else's worId— couldn't touch it.”
Initially setting out to shoot one quick, lo-fi clip, Cuaron took advantage of a setting and
a possibility and knocked out two more. “There was no planning,” she says.“ It was completely improvised, there was no time to overthink it. I had to just go for it. I became very impatient and very mentally drained, but I wanted to do it again and again. Those kinds
of moments make me feel like I constantly want to be making more stuff.
Drop by When You Drop Dead offers a portrait of a versatile, emerging talent, but Cuaron has visions for the scope of her future recording career. “Tyler, the Creator creates a character for each concept,” she says, “and I want to follow that kind of experience. I think that would be super- interesting. On this EP, it's a lot mashed up together, so it's kind of messy and it's not organized, but I feel like it shows all my sides."
Bu Cuaron gives the sense that she’s racing to keep up with her musical brainstorms and ambitions. Her songs are bursting with hooks, textures, energy. “Once I started putting effects on a sound and making my voice sound different,” she says, “I started thinking, If I can put reverb on , if I can put distortion, autotune, why not use all three? But then I’ve already done that, so I feel like I can’t repeat it.
"But something my dad told me once was to treat every project as if it's your last,” she continues. “So I started using ideas, in a verse or a chorus or a half a verse—‘Okay, here's that
idea, can't use it again.’ And then I just have to force my mind to create a different idea.”
ExpandShe’s not yet 20 years old, but the singer/songwriter’s debut EP,Drop by When You Drop Dead, has been a very long time in the making. A thrilling, dynamic blend of electronic indie pop with hip-hop and acoustic styles, and penetrating lyrics delivered in English, Spanish, and Italian, these six songs reflect years of study, evolution, and experimentation.
Cuaron, the daughter of five-time Academy Award winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón, was encouraged to explore her creative talents at a very young age, learning to play piano at age four. After adding violin and guitar study, she started writing songs at 11 and by age 13, she was producing her own music using the GarageBand app on her
brother’s iPad.
She rattles off a list of artists who inspired her as a young listener—Billie Eilish, Jessie Reyez. Daniel Caesar, Frank Ocean— all of whom were upending conventional pop sound and structure. She points to James Blake as someone who“ shifted my paradigm ,”especially the 2011 song“ I Never Learnt to Share.”
“I heard that song when I was 11,” she says. “It goes, ‘my brother and my sister don't speak to me, but I don't blame them,’ and it just keeps repeating that and the production changes. That's when I was like, ‘I want to experiment on GarageBand,’ and then I started making more weird stuff.
That exploratory approach defines Drop by When You Drop Dead , with tracks that continually shift and surprise, from the dramatic stop-and-start rollercoaster of“ Come for Me” to the rapid-
fire lyrics of the infectious, ukulele-powered singalong“ Sweet Face.”
“A lot of my songs have different structures,” says Cuaron.“ It's kind of like you learn the rules so well that you have to break them in order to feel like they're yours.”
Cuaron’s music was introduced to the world after she was invited to record some of her
songs in a real studio. A mixer on the session introduced her to someone who was working in
the next room—Grammy-winning producer Theron Feemster, whose credits
include Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, and Dr. Dre. They cut a song that she had
started while “not paying attention in class”; the result, titled“ Psycho,” was included on the 2019 album Music Inspired by the Film ‘Roma’ (a companion to her father’s Oscar-winning movie) alongside tracks by such artists as Beck and Patti Smith.
“Meeting Theron as a 14-year-old, I was like,‘Oh my God, this is the best day of my life,’I was freaking out,” says Cuaron. “But I always imagined things like that. I was never like, ‘Oh, I hope
I make it,’ I was like, ‘No, it's gonna happen, I'm gonna find a way. Since I was four, I've always had this big-picture mentality. Even things that are happening now were in my head since I was born.”
Cuaron’ s unusual family (her mother, Annalisa Bugliani, is an actor and journalist) and arts focused upbringing encouraged her expression and left a huge impact. “From my mom's side, I was constantly painting, we used to make oil paintings together,” she says. “And from my dad's side, we had a family iPod with all the music he loves—The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who. was constantly listening to it, and I became obsessed with all those bands.
I grew up being taught about the past and how art is a portrayal of the era we're living in or an era of history,” she continues. “It’s how we've always understood historical events and the sociological ideologies behind them. So growing up in a creative environment was definitely one of the greatest things—but since I don't know what it would be not to have that , I wasn't as grateful for it.”
Cuaron recently made her live debut at Italy’s La Prima Estate festival, and also discovered some new inspiration when she directed music videos for three songs on the EP.“ I love film,” she says.“ But I was very pushed away from it, because I always felt like it was someone else's worId— couldn't touch it.”
Initially setting out to shoot one quick, lo-fi clip, Cuaron took advantage of a setting and
a possibility and knocked out two more. “There was no planning,” she says.“ It was completely improvised, there was no time to overthink it. I had to just go for it. I became very impatient and very mentally drained, but I wanted to do it again and again. Those kinds
of moments make me feel like I constantly want to be making more stuff.
Drop by When You Drop Dead offers a portrait of a versatile, emerging talent, but Cuaron has visions for the scope of her future recording career. “Tyler, the Creator creates a character for each concept,” she says, “and I want to follow that kind of experience. I think that would be super- interesting. On this EP, it's a lot mashed up together, so it's kind of messy and it's not organized, but I feel like it shows all my sides."
Bu Cuaron gives the sense that she’s racing to keep up with her musical brainstorms and ambitions. Her songs are bursting with hooks, textures, energy. “Once I started putting effects on a sound and making my voice sound different,” she says, “I started thinking, If I can put reverb on , if I can put distortion, autotune, why not use all three? But then I’ve already done that, so I feel like I can’t repeat it.
"But something my dad told me once was to treat every project as if it's your last,” she continues. “So I started using ideas, in a verse or a chorus or a half a verse—‘Okay, here's that
idea, can't use it again.’ And then I just have to force my mind to create a different idea.”