I feel like Kelela was a door opener to a deep cultural universe that was created for people that look like me. It's been about 10 years since I first discovered kelela, and it almost seems like it took those ten years for me to understand the real impact she had on my sensory universe.
I feel like i can remember the moment i discovered her so clearly in my mind - I was in community college, and i just had a lot of stuff going on in my personal life and was going through soooo many changes, physically empotionally spatially and sensationally. i was in my room watching youtube videos and Kelela's video for "Rewind" was a suggested video, so i watched it and it was a wrap from there. I discovered her around the same time as ABRA and FKA Twigs, so i was aksing myself "who are these cool and ethereal black women on my screens and in my headphones?" I guess I followed their universe from there, and i feel like they helped guide me through the aesthetic changes i was experiencing because they were new faces with a new sound, because before that i was listening to tumblr music, Grizzly Bear and Toro y Moi and Arctic Monkeys but only the AM album.
Kelela is interested in nightlife and this shows in her remixes, in her fashion, and through the people she chooses to work with. I didnt understand this until maybe 2018, and I wasn't ACTUALLY interested in any of that until moving to Brooklyn in 2021. Her music definitely made my relationship with nightlife much easier - going to a club isnt intimidating when you know the music theyre going to play, and i already had my own taste in music, fashion, and a familiarity with the attitudes of the nightlife industry by being a listener and a fan of her music (and others) for so long.
I am so grateful to have seen her in two different contexts - performing a free show in Prospect Park last year, and seeing her do a club activation just a few weeks ago at Good Room. It makes me feel good to listen to her music. She released her debut CUT 4 ME when she was thirty years old, and she was able to build her career after spending her twenties absorbing her craft, living life and doing other things. I am apprehensive when it comes to creating artowrk, "putting yourself out there", and being judged by people that dont know anything about me. i look to her fearlessness and the sense of confidence that she exudes. her performances are real, unafraid to be unpolished, and unafraid to be perfect. I love being a listener, i love that her fans are all like me, it makes me feel like im supposed to be listening to her music, and knowing her copllaborators, and using all of these influences to extend my aesthetic universe. plus its just fun to be in the know about the things that you like, and i feel like she created this atmosphere of secret//sacred around her craft, so its cool to see her do these activations in places where her fans reside (LA, DC, NY) and to know that all of the people going are really into her universe and not a "newcomer".
