TEI SHI MAKES BELIEVE

On her fourth studio album Make believe I make believe, the West Coast It-girl celebrates her new sounds and new look at the Moxy Downtown LA as our Holiday 2025 Digital Cover star!

Written by E.R. Pulgar

The veil between this world and the next grows thinnest around the Holidays. These are times of veneration, costumes, merry-making, and assuming new identities in anticipation of a new year. 

Tei Shi, the Colombian-Canadian alternative siren extraordinaire born Valerie Teicher Barbosa, is sporting a new look for 2026 — and while not a total identity swap, she is getting very positive reactions.

“I think because of the bleached brows and my short dark hair now, especially on social media, people will be like, ‘oh my god, I thought it was Gaga,’” she tells VALŪS from Los Angeles when we talk just before Halloween, primetime for an aesthetic change. “I'm leaning into my Gaga moment for sure.” 

Gown by Ludovic de Saint Sernin

This past summer, Tei Shi released Make believe I make believe, her fourth studio album. Tei Shi has been an indie mainstay for years now, collaborating across the musical spectrum with everyone from Blood Orange and John Cale to Bandalos Chinos and Loyal Lobos. Her latest effort is her most daring and gentle yet, an offering that veers between languages and emotional textures to create something fresh for new and longtime listeners. She will also embark on a new international tour supporting Make believe in North America and Europe through March 2026.

A dembow rattle runs through Make believe I make believe. The famous partystarter of a rhythm is interpreted into a sensitive heartbeat on songs like her bilingual boy bye anthem, “222” and the floaty “Don’t Cry.” The gushing love song “Montón” also features the Caribbean rhythm, and turns the desire all the way up to a hundred on an eclectic remix by Spanish experimentalist Nusar3000, described in a press note as “reframing love through the pulse of the underground.”

Dress by SKIMS, shades by Alain Mikli

It wasn’t an easy road to Make believe. Fresh off leaving a label deal, she found herself fully independent for the first time since the start of her career. Receiving a grant to record music on Vancouver Island, she isolated herself for a week with producers Noah Beresin and Tommy English. Surrounded by forests and mountains on Canada’s Pacific Coast, and completely free of music industry bureaucracy, she let loose to make arguably her best record. 

“[Vancouver Island] is a stunning undiscovered gem for people, and making the album there was so fun and stress-free because I did it fully independently,” Tei Shi says of the process. “I've always wanted to be an artist that is constantly making and I think this album is the beginning of that chapter for me. I was very influenced by acoustic folk sounds that I feel are representative of some Canadian music, but then I was also bringing that into my world, which is bilingual and mixes in sounds from neoperreo and cumbia.”

Shoes by Dolce & Gabbana

Make believe I make believe vibrates with ceremonial magic rooted in mixing and imagining new sounds, an alchemy that leads listeners to new places. Tei Shi is fully embodying the glamor rituals of her new era, if neo-bolero “Aphrodite” is any indication;  she channels the namesake goddess, purring “Dip me in honey send me out to sea / Take all your money and spend it on me” into a lover’s ear. With this empowered new approach and all the Venusian energy Make believe I make believe is imbued with, one would think Tei Shi is a diva on the road.

Refreshingly, her backstage prep is uncomplicated: a yoga mat, a hot cup of fresh Throat Coat tea with a little bit of whiskey (preferably Jameson), and a wide-spanning playlist on a loop that ranges from Bad Bunny, Cocteau Twins, and Missy Elliott, to Juan Luis Guerra, Lucky Star-era Madonna, and Charly García’s ‘80s deep cuts. As for the show itself, Tei Shi sings and dances on-stage with a guitarist ripping into his instrument beside her, while a light show and panels with ethereal fabric move along to the beat. It’s her first show sharing the stage with another musician and making a bigger spectacle through set and light design. She’s been mentally preparing.

“I'm a little nervous to go back out on the road, not because it’s been a long time — it’s been a year — but because I realize more and more every time how much it takes out of me,” she confides. “Touring is so hard on you. It's a black hole where your life kind of disappears. You're out of sync with the rest of the world. This time it's going to be nice because it's broken up into pieces: the East Coast starting next week in the U.S. and Canada, then my first ever show in Mexico on the 8th. It’s my first one in Latin America, period, and I'm hoping that opens some doors there. In Europe, too; it’s been like seven years since I was over there. I feel like in a lot of ways I'm kind of restarting again, which is exciting, but a little destabilizing. I'm going to lose my routine!”

Tei Shi has been keeping herself grounded by expanding her musical repertoire. If her tour playlist is any indication, Tei Shi has been listening to everything lately; a lot of Spanish indie pop, Rebe, Beach House, the new Blood Orange album, Latin rock from the ‘80s. The eclecticism of her taste is as present in her new sound as it is in her approach, one that has shown a deep growth, an exploration of her Latin roots that feels unpretentious and light, and a genuine mining for new sonic territory. 

As 2025 enters its twilight, Tei Shi is looking to start fresh next year, manifesting adventure through the thin layer between timelines so prominent in the winter. “I really like New Year's,” she admits with a wry grin. “I don't have any plans yet — planning so ahead, can you imagine? — but I know I want to do something fun. I have to be on a quest for it.”

CREDITS

PHOTOGRAPHER | Sophia Schrank

WARDROBE STYLIST | Shalev Lavan

MAKEUP ARTIST | David Velasquez

HAIR STYLIST | Isaac Davidson

MANICURIST | Yoko Sakakura

WARDROBE ASSISTANT | Anna Isabel Chang