B ehind Kelela’s intoxicating locks and soft-spoken nature lies a fierceness, a simmering urgency, which serves as the true source of her power. Rest assured, the singer-songwriter is using that power to create the life she wants. I know this because when we met years ago at an R Street café in her native Washington, D.C., her life was very different than it is now. I remember asking why she was moving to Los Angeles and getting a simple yet honest answer.“ I’m moving to L.A. to blow the fuck up. ” Oh. Right. That was five years ago and far more difficult than she thought. Back then, I witnessed the ruthlessness of Kelela’s journey firsthand. Crashing on couches and floor mattresses, hitching rides, performing countless late-night shows, the singer’s fiery hustle attacked the sonic landscape of L.A.’s electro-bass scene with double-fisted machetes (or in her case, a microphone that she never left home without). In warehouses, abandoned churches, alleys, and parking lots, the parties would often roll till six in the morning. Often starting her performances at 4:00 AM, Kelela would be tired but determined to give all that she had left to whoever was still in the building. During those days, she’d dream up producers for an album that no one we knew had the money to make. Finding producers she could vibe with was always a…“thing.” Most of them were in London, Germany, or an obscure wilderness reserve making weirdo Björky shit with a Plutonian twist. Kelela’s tastes were…specific. As far as collaborators went, no one seemed to know what she was looking for but her. One night, while recording in a Burbank studio, L.A. underground art and music conceptualist/ curator Total Freedom (aka Ashland Mines) found himself captivated by Kelela’s voice and offered to introduce her to his friends—bass music labelmates Kingdom, Nguzunguzu, and then Dallas-based DJ Prince William. By now, Kelela had a million cats getting at her about “doing vocals over a track,” but that wasn’t enough. She wanted to record songs—her voice at the front of the track, an equal partner in a sonic marriage, not hovering meekly beneath a swath of Atari samples.Total Freedom’s L.A.-based Fade to Mind crew came through with tracks Kelela fell in love with, and CUT 4 ME , a thirteen-track critically acclaimed mixtape, was born. A mutual friend hit me up, like, “Hey, K’s opening up for a major recording artist.” I thought,“Opening? She should be headlining that shit.” Fast-forward to spring 2014 at the Echo in Los Angeles, where she headlines a sold-out doubleheader. Onstage are pulsating visuals: two halos of fire rotating intensely, urgently, simultaneously, and counterclockwise—the way a Gemini’s mind works, the way Kelela’s mind works—occupying our visual space without gravity. In front of us all, Kelela strips down emotionally, as if she were alone in the room—interpreting mood in real time, translating the language of a beating heart to a room full of fans who’ve all long ago predicted we’d be here doing this with her right now. She thanks us for riding with her, and it becomes clear that Kelela’s found her own space in a cosmic mash-up of electro bangers and ballads—rhythmic space sex music.At the Echo, we bear witness to her creative process, as she channels the complexity of her own needs in a way that puts us in touch with the kinetic energy of feminine icons who’ve arrived before her. But let’s not go overboard. She’s no Janet or Aaliyah.And that’s a very good thing, because as we witness Kelela peel back layers of her inner self while creating and re-creating all that she is right before our eyes, we’ll define and redefine her for ourselves—if defining Kelela is even a plausible ambition.
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