Girl Ultra Brings Her Dreamy, Dancefloor-Ready Universe to Miami for the First Time

For nearly a decade, Mexico City native Girl Ultra has been carving out her own musical identity that's part velvet-draped R&B, part neon-lit dancefloor confession. On Wednesday, August 13, she brings that vibe to Gramps in Wynwood for the first time, marking her long-overdue live Miami debut.

Born Mariana de Miguel, Girl Ultra got her start spinning DJ sets across CDMX after leaving film school, eventually joining the roster of Finesse Records and dropping her debut EP Boys in 2017. The project included a Spanish-language cover of Daniel Caesar's 'Get You', an early glimpse into her ability to reinterpret her influences through a deeply personal lens.

From the beginning, she's followed inspiration as it hits. "I've always allowed myself to change," she tells New Times. "Girl Ultra started with R&B because that's what was surrounding me: '80s and '90s R&B was imprinted in my head, along with classic Spanish rock thanks to my dad. There wasn't a lot of music in Spanish properly referencing that genre, so it felt fresh and new to me." Since then, her sound has shapeshifted through bilingual dream-pop, punk textures, and club-drenched beats. "Overdriven guitars and drum machines, where club music meets rock, was a fun canvas to experiment on," she says. "Pretty colorful."

Her latest single, "Tomás," pushes that evolution even further, enlisting legendary electro-funk duo Chromeo and Honduran-American pop shapeshifter Empress Of for a hypnotic, emotionally heavy track recorded entirely on analog gear. The collaboration, which started online ("I met Dave from Chromeo years ago on the internet!"), became a surreal full-circle moment. "To get the production 'cheats' from people I've admired for years? It's such a crazy idea," she laughs.
The song, which she describes as being "about the archetype of a man we mourn, yet despise," carries her signature blend of vulnerability and groove. "Maybe I'm just one of the last romantics alive," she says, mostly in jest, I think. "I'm a sucker for romance and feeling things deeply. I try to capture that raw feeling like a Rothko painting, with layers of color and heartbreak. To see, how deep can it go?"

While Blush, her 2024 EP, received plenty of praise, she's quick to distance herself from being boxed into any one genre. "R&B now is a huge part of global music, and I love seeing it grow in Mexico. But for me? I started to feel like it was putting a leash on me," she says. "Here and there it still creeps in through melodies, but I don't feel as attached to it anymore, even though I'm happy to see the traces of it show up in my work."

That sense of freedom has fueled her desire to experiment with fresh sounds and genres. Rock, garage, trip-hop, and what she calls "that majestic, genderless blender of sound" she grew up with as a kid of the early internet. "I have this musical archive in my head," she says, "just collecting, downloading, absorbing things that left an impression.

"Even as she expands globally, Mexico City remains central to her identity and artistic process. "There's a responsibility that comes with creating community," she says. "Giving back to the place you belong gives depth to your work. Even if the sounds don't originate there, I want to incorporate elements of Mexico City into it. That's important."

Though she's been to Miami before for DJ gigs, this will be her first live performance here. "I haven't really seen the darker side of Miami yet," she admits. "But all cities have contrasts. That's what I love about Mexico City: its chaos, grit, brutalist architecture, goth clubs. It all adds texture to the city and to my music."

At 29, Girl Ultra's career still feels like it's in bloom. There's an intentional shedding and reshaping happening, moving past genres, past formulas, into something more instinctual. Whether she's dancing through heartbreak or building nostalgic joy into new musical cathedrals, she's still writing her way out of the dark, one groove at a time.

Girl Ultra. 8 p.m. Wednesday, August 13, at Gramps, 176 NW 24th St., Miami; gramps.com. Tickets cost $20 + fees via Ticketweb.