Kelela Mizanekristos Quotes
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Sounding like I have agency in a song is important to me. I want to feel empowered by the music.
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I'd like to change what people expect. I want to evoke something that's not nameable, for people to go, 'Huh?'
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No one is making extraordinary things alone. They might be alone in their bedroom while they're recording or writing, but they didn't actually conjure that thing out of nothing - without influence - without assistance - without anything.
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I would say there is a zone of R&B that hadn't been quite innovative.
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I just want to shed light, illuminate and turn the spotlight over to all of the black people who have been being futuristic and innovative since instruments were plugged into a wall. With computers, machines, and music, black people have been contributing to that a great deal for a long time.
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I've grown up feeling very American but being constantly bothered by people - there's internalized racism and feeling weird about being second-generation.
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Even on my most angry song, I'm also still saying, 'Thank you for helping me to learn.' I've always wanted to give voice to that complexity in our experience.
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I think the Internet is more layered and complex than just hating it or liking it. I find it to be more purposeful to talk about the way that it's conducive for relationships and making connections.
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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.
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The whole thing about 'progressive R&B' blows my mind. Black music has always been progressive.
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I like smart rappers who aren't necessarily trying to be deeper than you, like Danny Brown.
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I'm pushing back against the white, misogynistic, heterosexual establishment in the music industry. Like, literally, in all its forms.
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I'm coming from the zone of Faith Evans, but with weird production.
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When I started making songs, some of them read as mixtape-y, and some of them read as album-y.
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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.
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When I was little, my parents would have these gatherings, and it was a common thing for me and my cousins to have to put on, like, shows.
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A lot of people of color in the music industry are still more interested in embracing things that are considered white canon, and looking radical. Like when people point to punk in the indie world: If you point to the history of punk as what you see as your legacy, that's more prized and praised.
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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.
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I'm just tryna be honest about all the things that I dig in my music. It's not just this over here, it's also that over there.
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A black woman's handbook in this industry is, 'Whoa.' The chapter on 'Don't go there.' The chapter on 'How to say that nicely,' how to express that you don't like something so that you don't lose the opportunity - which is what we're doing all day long.
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We don't want it to be obscure music. We're not trying to be indie. We want to be popular.
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I really do like Solange, sincerely. I'm down for her, and I trust her judgment.
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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?'
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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.