Kelela's latest album, New Avatar, has been immediately embraced by fans and critics as a modern classic. The American singer-songwriter says she wasn't surprised, describing a feeling you get when you're making something that good.
"Oscar [Scheller, her producer] and I were definitely feeling that feeling," she says, speaking from her New York apartment on a rare day off touring. The tour will soon take her to London, where she'll play to a sold-out crowd at Brixton's O2 Academy.
A Genre-Blending Sound
The 43-year-old Washington, DC native (full name Kelela Mizanekristos) says it's "probably the most commercial record I've ever made, so there was definitely an inclination that it was going to bring new people in."
The album emulsifies Kelela's oozing vibrato with jagged guitars and beats that skitter away like insects. Shoegaze, R&B, trip-hop, electronic and jazz influences are welded together to form something distinctly "of the moment."
While many electronic-leaning pop acts are picking up guitars (Charli xcx, Slayyyter), Kelela has history in this place that far predates trends. Growing up, she was part of a short-lived indie band called Dizzy Spells on the underground DC scene. Outta Time, her collaboration with AK Paul on the new record, was actually conceived as early as 2017.
Curatorial Patience
"I have lived so many musical lives," she says. "I think people generally spend time in one scene, and they move deeply into that one scene. But I would say that my trajectory has been more one of like passing through many different scenes."
Growing up as a second-generation Ethiopian American immigrant in DC, Kelela's father exposed her to jazz music at an early age and took her to her first opera at the Kennedy Centre. She sang first in her school's choir, then at local cafés, where she'd perform jazz standards, and then for Dizzy Spells.
Kelela takes pride in her sense of timing. "I have a lot of curatorial patience," she says. "For just like, 'This isn't the time for this right now. I haven't built the house for this yet.'" This can come at a cost: long wait periods between albums can feel risky in an industry that tends to punish patience rather than reward it. But for Kelela, this is non-negotiable. "Maybe there's another person who's really good at doing it quickly; I am just not. I'm not that artist," she says.
Remix Culture and 'Sonic Racism'
One of the only other features on New Avatar comes from British singer-producer PinkPantheress, who lends her softly spoken vocals to club liaison track The Bridge. In February, PinkPantheress made history as the first woman to win Producer of the Year at the Brit Awards.
Back in 2015, Kelela's Hallucinogen EP was shipped off for remixing without her signing on as producer. "After that, I was like, 'We're never doing this again,'" she remembers. "The culture of remixing at that time was very much: send the song to the really big — mainly white — DJs, pay the producer, and get your remix. It was not about being a good fit."
Kelela has taken the reins for every remix album since, crediting Mariah Carey for the current approach. Of the disconnected remix culture of the 2000s, she says: "It had a lot to do with whiteness. There was just a way where it felt it had lost its cultural roots."
This is part of a scourge Kelela has dubbed "sonic racism" — the undervaluing or pigeonholing of artists in genres typically considered as black. "I think pop music is R&B," she says. "The whole code for pop is embedded in R&B."
Open to a Mainstream Moment
Kelela also gets pigeonholed by her own fans, who assume she doesn't want more success. On a recent podcast, Kelela argued that this isn't the case, saying she doesn't need to be "your fave's fave," but could in fact be "your fave."
An explosive, mainstream "Brat" moment might not be Kelela's idea of hell. In fact, it's something she's entirely open to. "In no way, shape or form am I like, 'Please, no Brat moment,'" she laughs. "If something that I made resonated with people and the masses in that way, I would be really happy, and I might make different choices, but it would be very welcome for sure."
As for now, Kelela is just pleased she's still able to make music. "I did think it would be over by the time I was like 27, 28," she says. After creating her very first mixtape, she was so pleased with it that she was ready to give up right there and then. "I was like, OK, this does feel like this is something I could stand by and also sleep at night. If nobody f***ed with it, I would still be like, 'I ate.'"
Expectations for a potential New Avatar remix album are particularly high. "There will never be an album that I release that doesn't have a remix," she says decisively. New Avatar is out now. Kelela plays the O2 Brixton Academy on November 4.
