Kelela Mizanekristos Quotes
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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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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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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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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'm pushing back against the white, misogynistic, heterosexual establishment in the music industry. Like, literally, in all its forms.
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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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I'm coming from the zone of Faith Evans, but with weird production.
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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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Fog and one blue light is all I need in life at the club. Just a dark room and loud music. I'm into that.
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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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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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I'm very into familiar things, popular things. I'm into things that no one seems to know about or be into. I'm trying to draw a line between those two things and make it clear... that it all makes sense to me. That it's not disparate. That it's all one thing inside me.
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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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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.
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I'm interested in bridging and filling in space that hasn't already been filled, so when it comes to making music, I've just always wanted to be able to reference things that producers in the big pop major label context do, without compromising the entire sound of the record.
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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.
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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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The most rewarding thing for someone like me is for someone else to find solace through my music.
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I would love to do an album of standards!
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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.