Finally running RAVE:N for the first time

Been waiting months for this

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one of the best songs of the decade!

I agree!!

what are the odds of us getting a well-shot recording of her blue note performance?

Love of my life

Let It Go remix my favorite song of the year still

remix album still album of the year

Raven after sundown

happy birthday kels!!!

Shaadi: There was a moment of sonic healing for me watching your most recent Tiny Desk performance in February. For me, it looked like a celestial symphony that was dropped down from a star system into a tiny room on Earth.

Kelela: I’m screaming.

Shaadi: Normally in the media you have queer women, queer Black women, trans women presented in a very specific way, often in defense of their bodies. Here they were just able to create this sound. You have this huge harp taking up all this space within the room. It’s beautiful. You have these women with these otherworldly voices and sounds. Yourself and your own otherworldly voice. For me this moment felt like watching divine regeneration. That was a big moment—to see queer Black women in motion instead of defense. Able to go further than the limits of other people’s imaginations but also able to create lucrative livelihoods for themselves. To create music. Are these collaborations and pairings intentional for you?

Kelela: Everything is intentional. What I love is that if you see my friends who might not be musicians, who are artists in other disciplines, there’s a rigor to how they’re thinking about themselves—their place in the world and their own healing. I’m looking for a tenderness. A ‘comfort-with.’ I’m looking for bandmates and creative partners in general who are in touch with that part of themselves and are leading with vulnerability in many aspects of their lives and with whom that ethic would resonate. As many spots that my personal economy creates, I’m wanting to fill it with those people. I do prioritize Black people. I do prioritize queer Black femmes, to be really honest, over everybody. That’s why you are doing this interview. That’s why Ahya Simone is on harp. That’s why Alayna Rodgers and Sis are on vocals. That’s a big part of what I’m doing and I want it to serve us, because there are so few contexts that do.

I cried a little bit when I first saw the Tiny Desk because there’s so much emotionality that is coming out of Ahya. There’s this one part where the camera zooms in on her and she’s just so inside the harp and she looks so emotional as she’s swaying. I don’t know, it just makes me want to cry, even now. There’s this other moment where Alayna does this thing with her hands where she’s got her arms out, her elbows are out in front of her, and her fingers are spread a little bit. And she keeps making this sort of waving motion with her hands, closing her eyes, and just looking like she loves this so much. The emotions just oozing and spilling out.

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Kelela: Over the pandemic, I became more clear about the culture I created in my world. That culture is definitely one of wearing your heart on your sleeve, leading with vulnerability and tenderness. Maybe experiencing a lot of different forms of rejection, but being clear that it’s not you and centering love still. Being among the people who experience the least amount of love collectively, from the world, and being the best lovers. That’s the tribe that I created.

I remember ‘Washed Away.’ When I first started it, I was like, ‘This is the beginning of the record and it’s saving me.’ It almost felt like I got lifted out of a terrible situation. I’m far away from the danger, but I’m also isolated. I’m safe, but I’m isolated. That sort of duality… I felt like if it does this to me, it’ll do this to the girls. And the girls was like, ‘Bitch, it did do that.’ Both laugh

I played it for so many of my friends and it was tears on the first song. I think that has to do with them empathizing with me as a person in part, but more so them feeling centered in the story themselves. Crying for themselves. I think that’s the world I’m trying to create within this world.

Shaadi: I think growing up in the ’80s, ’90s, or early 2000s, it was a very difficult time if you were Black, a different kind of body, if you were in any way different from… the word we will use is ‘hegemony.’ What is considered to be associated with power. For me, coming of age, it felt like I was holding my breath my whole childhood and teenage years and there was this collective sigh when there was even the tiniest bit of space. Are you writing for us, for people who were in that darkness, for yourself?

Kelela: I am thinking about you when I am writing. I am thinking about niggas who gotta go to work and f***ing hate it. I’m thinking about the car ride I would have to make when I just don’t want to do this and, yeah, the darkness. I’m thinking of the darkest of the darkest. The darkest of our routines that we’ve had to do. The push through. Does this work for the push through? Does this help you push through? I’ll change lyrics if it doesn’t feel productive. I’ll be like, ‘I can’t have Black women screaming that lyric over and over again in their car.’ That girl who has to stomp when she’s on the train. I’m like, ‘No, let’s say this lyric.’ It’s a very big deal. I want to create a movie soundtrack for your life that makes you feel like the main character. That’s the test it has to pass. Does the wind feel like it’s blowing enough for you in your hair, so we can get the shot of your despair? Because if we’re about to be sad and struggling, at least let it be to an incredible soundtrack.

Searching for tenderness with Kelela

🖤

"The year is 2003. A 19-year-old Kelela Mizanekristos sits alone at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York’s West Village, a MiniDisc recorder concealed under her table. An electric solo set by Groove Theory co-founder Amel Larrieux makes the arduous four-hour drive from DC worth it. She has a 7 am class the next morning, but Larrieux’s music—and music, period— is all that matters to her at this moment. “She taught me so much about performance and just going for it and not trying to be perfect. She would just give her all in this way that didn’t feel safe,” Kelela gushed about Larrieux two decades later. “I think that was what drew me to her. I saw so much of myself in that. More than anything, I would like to give that back to someone else.”

Kelela Walked Away From Music for Years. At an Intimate New York Show, She Came Back to Find Her Fans Waiting

highly recommend diving deeper into Agazero's work, Brazilian producer who's featured on the remix album twice, with his jungle alias DJ LHC too. imo one of the most exciting club producers around rn

some of my fav work of his is as ICQ Baby, a lot of jersey club remixes but also with some baile, drill, jungle thrown in at points. just a big masterful mix of everything lit

here his jersey remix of LUCKI, this whole EP is insane

Just followed them on Bandcamp, thanks

Jigglypuff sample

Yeah this EP crazy

@proper

i think i got some icq baby in my e mix tbh

first song newjeans

kaskade/araabmuzik sample

end of harevest ep go crazy just finished first listen

u know what's up Dis Fig dropping this during a club set like 2 years ago got me obsessed w araabmuzik. electronic dream aged so well

agazero so real for mixing with acoustic video version too, I also tried to mash up all the diff versions once with my nonexistent mixing skills but it was total ass lmao 😭