Quotes from Kelela

Popular music was this abstraction - an abstraction that I was relating to immensely but was ultimately far away.

Growing up in an Ethiopian household allowed me to feel like I had an audience before I had an audience.

I'd like to change what people expect. I want to evoke something that's not nameable, for people to go, 'Huh?'

You can never have enough reinforcements, resources for black women to thrive in the world. The topic has been addressed a million times before, but it will never end because what we're up against keeps morphing, and we have to figure out how to beat it.

The assumption is simply that I hit on all the things I've hit on so far by accident, that my talent is just this raw thing that pours out of me, and then white people feel like they have to come in and contain it, refine it, and bring it to the place where it can been released.

Often, I write to feel better and to heal - to cope with things that I'm dealing with. I'm either writing to get out of a feeling or to get into the feeling, to feel it more. Usually it's the perfect remedy, but if it isn't, I focus on other parts of what I'm making that don't involve writing. If neither are working, I simply forfeit the day.

I try to make it a sonic experience so that when you put your earbuds in or when you're in your room, it sounds like an enveloping feeling. I think that is the most important thing, that wherever you are, it is wrapping you up and making you feel safe and comfortable.

Self-care is a requirement.

For those of us who make music together, I think it's important to realize that generosity on both sides is actually going to produce the biggest possibility.

Most of my friends, growing up, were upper-middle-class white kids, so it was a different reality at home both culturally and linguistically. It created a lot of insecurities for me, but it also did a lot of amazing things that I didn't know were happening at the time.

I remember the day I first heard what Timbaland and Aaliyah did - that intersection of her pretty voice and his weird, resonant production. I remember where I was and what I was doing. It was a major situation. We're trying to continue that legacy.

I want to speak in the tradition of rhythm and blues and soul music, but also push how it's dressed and how it's delivered to the audience. And hopefully that gets embraced by as many people as possible, but the goal isn't necessarily to speak to everyone. The goal is to get it out as exact as it is in my head.

To me, the best writing points to something literal or common but is also nuanced: The moment when somebody is telling you they love you while simultaneously disappointing you. Everybody's experienced that.

I really do like Solange, sincerely. I'm down for her, and I trust her judgment.

When I called 'Cut 4 Me' a mixtape, I was thinking about a few elements: One is used instrumentals. The project is more centered around introducing you to an artist; it's not meant to be seminal. It's 'Hi,' 'Hello,' a thing that you first hear.

As a black person on the outside, because there's so much black art and so much of black people's work circulating, so many people imitating what black people do, you would think that there'd be more black people on the business side. It didn't cross my mind that every label head, for the most part, is a white guy.

It's such a challenging time, and in my small way, I will make it so that other younger women, and maybe older women, will be able to do the things they want to do, and accept themselves and their experience.

'Seat at the Table' has expressed real adversity, struggle, and also triumph and joy.

The most rewarding thing for someone like me is for someone else to find solace through my music.

I am your homegirl, at the end of the day, but I also feel very... outside. So if you're finding solace in feeling outside with me, then we're good to go.

That's pretty much how every song of mine works - I start with gibberish and melody and phrasing. I speak it naturally first. And then I think about lyrics that fit into that.

Innovating something that is familiar. That's the general approach, and that's what I want to do with the melody as well. It should ring true - you should like every melody sequence without knowing what's happening next.

I like to try out different methods to get to good songs.

I'm coming from the zone of Faith Evans, but with weird production.