Kelela synthesizes contemporary R&B and progressive electronic music with an aptitude for prompting club play as much as bedroom listening. The vocalist and songwriter, born Kelela Mizanekristos in Washington, D.C., was raised in suburban Maryland and didn't have aspirations as a singer until she started studying jazz. Subsequent obsessions with Amel Larrieux and Little Dragon helped push her toward finding her own style -- one she found after she moved to Los Angeles in 2010.
Website
Grounded: the revival of Kelela - Dazed Autumn 2022
‘Why did I feel rusty? White supremacy’: Kelela on writer’s block, outsiderdom and her long-awaited second album
Kelela’s Long-Awaited Return Is So Vulnerable It Scared Her
"Unmistakably Black": Kelela is a liaison between the worlds within dance music
Kelela: “I’m everybody’s favourite secret”
Kelela Wants to Hear Black Music's Truths
Kelela Knows What Intimacy Sounds Like
The Black Femme Renaissance: Kelela Is Making Her Own Rules
Kelela: "Si può tornare alle emozioni più negative e buie del passato per riviverle e cambiarle"
Video Interview w/ Tanya Butler for Triple J Soul
"Raven is the work of a careful observer, proving the R&B artist is just as poignant over ambient, jungle and dancehall, as she is on her more well-trodden terrain....With Raven, Kelela sought to write a record with Black femmes in mind, hoping that her own experiences of healing, of joy, of anger and of love would resonate with them. "I started this process from the feeling of isolation and alienation I've always had as a Black femme in dance music, despite its Black origins," she explained in the album's press release. "Raven is my first breath taken in the dark, an affirmation of Black femme perspective in the midst of systemic erasure and the sound of our vulnerability turned to power."- ra.co/reviews/35308