Quotes from Kelela

I would say there is a zone of R&B that hadn't been quite innovative.

I want to soundtrack people's layered feelings.

I'm just trying to soundtrack your real life. I'm just trying to give you a place to feel safe in all the parts of your experience.

When it comes to melodies, production, and sound in pop music, people try to be formulaic and solely concerned with what's resonant in a way that is so cheap and ugly. It actually just devolves culture, ultimately.

There are no black women geniuses that are being named in canons. I could name a bunch, but it's not part of common knowledge. It's not how the world is taught to think about black women.

I don't care about the underground, even if that's where I'm currently residing sonically.

Anyone who understands anti-racist work, a white person specifically, understands that it is not black people's responsibility, or any person of color's responsibility, to dismantle the structures that keep white people in positions of power. We do our job to thrive, to survive. To protect ourselves, to sit together and feel better and to heal.

I would love to do an album of standards!

We don't want it to be obscure music. We're not trying to be indie. We want to be popular.

At the end of the day, I would like to have the farthest reach in terms of being able to communicate to as many people as possible. So it's not that I enjoy being obscure; it's that I sonically don't want to be situated here or there.

I would say Tracy Chapman was the first time I obsessed over an entire record. I knew every song; I knew the exact amount of seconds between each song. That's the level of obsession that I had.

My first reaction to being pigeonholed or pushed into certain confines is to be like, 'No, I'm the opposite,' you know? Like, don't put me in a stereotypical black-girl category, because I'm not like that; I'm doing this thing over here.

It definitely feels different to perform to people who know your music. Because people's feedback is not just, 'Oh my God, that was amazing. Who are you?'

I don't write lyrics. I hear the track and sing in gibberish over it, then I try and fit words into the phrasing and melody that I already have set. Everything is left to chance.

'Take Me Apart' doesn't feel cohesive in a singular way but in a varied way. You can fixate on individual songs, and there are references from all over the place: Anita Baker to Bjork. I wanted to show all the facets of myself.

I was in school studying International Studies and Sociology. I was really into what was going on in school. I was affected by the ideas and engaged as a student, but not disciplined or motivated enough to do the work. That was a fear of mine for a while, that nothing was motivating.

I want to empower.

Sounding like I have agency in a song is important to me. I want to feel empowered by the music.

I think my worst enemy was myself. It's like I've been in my own way more than anybody else has been.