Ela Taubert is a strong believer in signs, and in the run-up to winning Best New Artist at the 2024 Latin GRAMMYs, the Colombian singer was seeing them everywhere. Back home, she and her family had a tradition of making a wish at 11:11, and as the award ceremony drew nearer, the number kept leaping out at her — on advertisements, street signs, on her phone, or on the radio. No matter where she went, she couldn’t deny it: "There was just a magic energy in the air," she tells GRAMMY.com.
Taubert wasn’t trying to obsess over what she might say or do if she won; she had other things on her mind — namely, the debut performance of her heartbreak anthem, "¿Cómo Pasó?" with Joe Jonas. So when her name was called for the coveted Best New Artist award, she was in shock.
"It was like feeling 40,000 butterflies in my stomach," she says. "I got up on stage, and my mind went blank, which is funny because I was that little girl who used to practice her GRAMMYs acceptance speeches with a hairbrush in the mirror."
At 24 years old, Taubert has already made a strong case for herself as a future pop phenom. Her confessional music and formidable vocals strike a balance somewhere between Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus, and her 2023 EP ¿Quién Dijo Que Era Fácil? earned co-signs from some of the biggest names in Latin music, including fellow Colombian artists Karol G and Feid. Months after her big win at the Latin GRAMMYs, Taubert announced her debut album, PREGUNTAS A LAS 11:11, out May 9.
In an album full of questions, Taubert really wanted to consider how she might begin. She landed on opening track "¿Quién Diría?", a bright pop track about unexpected love with an earworm of a chorus. "It’s the only love song on the album, but we wanted to start with it, because that’s where all stories start," she says of her and producer and frequent collaborator Kevin Aguirre.
Taubert's own story begins in the Colombian capital Bogotá, where she was raised as the only child in a very tight-knit, creative family (her grandfather had an affinity for model ship building, her grandmother painted and danced flamenco, and her mother works as a TV presenter). And while she’s now based in Miami, Taubert still thinks of her hometown as the epicenter of her dreams and the foundation of her musical sensibilities.
"The city made me into who I am, musically and aesthetically," she says. "I grew up with a lot of artistic freedom, so I could explore and understand myself along the way….Dreaming big was the foundation of our family, so I think that’s something I’ve been doing for many, many years."
That sense of freedom is evident to her on her debut EP, which ranges from angsty guitar-driven tracks to slower, more emotional ballads. "It’s literally a sancocho of sounds," Tauber says with a laugh, referring to the Colombian one-pot stew made of a mix of meats and vegetables. "It was just me trying to figure out what I liked and what I didn't. It’s been a real process of trial and error and giving myself the opportunity to make mistakes."
But it’s all part of the journey and the result is a clearer, stronger distillation of Taubert's ideas and emotions.
And if you can’t tell by PREGUNTAS’ tracklist — which is full of titles like "¿Por Qué Soy Así?" ("Why Am I Like This?") and "¿Por Qué No Me Fui Antes?" ("Why Didn’t I Leave Sooner?") — Taubert is a bit of an overthinker. Each track poses a different question, with the exception of "Preguntas," which literally means "Questions."
It’s a reflection of how deeply she considers things, and how often she, like countless other young women, is trying her best to make sense of her relationships, ambitions, and place in the world. "For as long as I can remember, I’ve always overthought things," she admits. "Even the first time I wrote a song, it was in the form of a question."
When she considers how she’s portraying herself in these songs, she first answers, "vulnerable and empowered," before switching to a more visual metaphor, explaining herself through the two colors most prominently featured on the album artwork: pink and blue. "I imagine everything as I’m writing it, so when we started working on this album, I thought about how when I was little, I saw everything as blue — I was super sensitive, I would cry over everything, I was vulnerable. I was really fragile with my emotions."
But when she moved to the U.S. to pursue music, she felt overwhelmed by how quickly everything was moving. "It was like all of a sudden, your dreams are coming true, but you’re also learning that the world is cruel and how hard it is to grow up," she says. "I had to get stronger, and I don’t know why, but I felt like the color pink."
The album is those two things — pink and blue, strength and vulnerability — coexisting. "Now I know I don’t have to abandon one for the other," she says. "I can be both. And discovering that I could embrace those two sides of me is one of the most beautiful discoveries I’ve made on this journey."
In the process of creating PREGUNTAS, Taubert often found herself traveling back in time. She thought a lot about the artists who inspired her to succeed and soundtracked her childhood, introducing her to the idea that she could be a musician, too. She’d grown up listening to Taylor Swift, Adele, Justin Bieber, and Miley Cyrus, but also Latin American artists like Jesse y Joy, Morat, and Reik. "All those influences live in me, and when we were writing, it felt inevitable that some of those things would come out."
That’s why it was such a full-circle moment when she got the opportunity to remix her breakout hit, "¿Cómo Pasó?" with Joe Jonas last year. "That was one of the biggest dream come true moments of my entire life," she says, sharing that there are home videos of a younger Taubert singing along to "This Is Me," from Disney’s 2008 film, Camp Rock. "They say to never meet your heroes, but I’m so lucky that I haven’t had that experience. Joe was incredible. He really adapted himself to the song, and really went out of his way to support it. It changed my life in so many ways. I’m so grateful to him for that."
The collaboration felt like proof that she was on the right track. It’s the same way she felt when, last summer, Karol G invited her to open for her at the Bogotá show for the Mañana Será Bonito LATAM Tour. "She was one of the first artists to extend her hand out to me and lift me up right when I was starting out. That kind of support, especially from another female artist, is so incredible. She gave me the chance to open for her in my city. It was crazy, it was one of the most magical nights of my life."
Taubert continues to reflect on these life-changing moments and how she wound up in this position; she found herself with more questions than answers. "When you’re an overthinker, you’re always wanting to decipher and control things," she says. "But life is all about contradictions and not having control. Looking back on my memories, I realized that as badly as I want to understand things sometimes, there are going to be things that I can’t explain and I’m learning to accept that."
Writing has long been a method of release for Taubert — a way to honor her memories and heal from pain — and each song is a window into her world. Yet her perspective on the craft has evolved as her music filters into the world.
"I realized that when I vent, I can make something that belongs to someone else — something that accompanies them in good times and bad," she says. "I love that when I write, there’s someone out there who might hear these songs and find refuge in them, and make them their own. How cool to be part of the soundtrack to someone else’s life?"
The rawest song on Taubert's debut is "Preguntas," a delicate ballad in which the singer outlines her naked desires and greatest fears. "It’s the one that feels most true to the moment I’m living right now," she says. She knew from the beginning of the album’s conception that she wanted a track titled "Preguntas," but she had been waiting for inspiration to strike. Then, there was a blue moon last summer.
"We were out on the beach watching the moon, and I just felt overwhelmed by this feeling," she says. "I wrote it all, I cried a ton, and then we recorded it."
Once her songs are released, she relinquishes control, eager to hear how her fans might interpret them or identify with them. "With this album, I wanted to give people a glimpse of me as I really am. I wanted to be as honest as possible," she says. "These songs are the sum of the last 10 years of my life. It’s so many different sides of me, but I hope that there’s something there for everyone to see themselves in. If people connect to it, then I’m doing something right."