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" I have something stupid, like, 12 credits, to graduate. "
Kelela
Stupid
Like
Something
Related Quotes:
" 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. "
Kelela
Words
Try
Over
" I'd like to change what people expect. I want to evoke something that's not nameable, for people to go, 'Huh?' "
Kelela
Change
Expect
Go
" Before I collaborate, it's important that I have a conversation about what I care about before we make anything, so that it's very clear. "
Kelela
Care
Clear
Conversation
" As a black woman, there's so much pride and communication through hair. It's naturally something that you are excited to embellish on and be creative about. "
Kelela
Black
Communication
Hair
" That's pretty much how every song of mine works - I start with gibberish and melody and phrasing. I speak it naturally first. And then I think about lyrics that fit into that. "
Kelela
First
Start
Think
" 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. "
Kelela
People
Place
Feel
" 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. "
Kelela
Goal
Soul
Speak
" 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. "
Kelela
Trying
Two
Inside
" After it became clear that I was not going to graduate, I had this moment where I was like, 'I need to not sulk. I need to pursue - at least try - to pursue music. But if I don't try, I'm going to be a really bitter middle-aged lady working in a cubicle.' "
Kelela
Lady
Working
Try
" I know my ticket is vulnerability. Most people point to some emotional experience, some hardship, some high or low when they talk about my music... a time when they need to feel those feelings more. "
Kelela
Know
Experience
Time
" 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. "
Kelela
Me
You
Over
" You can never have enough reinforcements, resources for black women to thrive in the world. The topic has been addressed a million times before, but it will never end because what we're up against keeps morphing, and we have to figure out how to beat it. "
Kelela
World
You
Women
" I've always had this commitment to not being in one thing. "
Kelela
Being
Always
One Thing
" Self-care is a requirement. "
Kelela
Requirement
" 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. "
Kelela
Without
Sound
Always
" I'm pushing back against the white, misogynistic, heterosexual establishment in the music industry. Like, literally, in all its forms. "
Kelela
Against
Music
Like
" 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. "
Kelela
Time
People
Music
" 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. "
Kelela
Music
Dig
Here
" My queer black women peers are the ones who make me not feel crazy. The way we act is so instinctive. "
Kelela
Crazy
Women
Way
" I spent a lot of time in college. I was just being academic and discovering myself through reason and analysis. "
Kelela
Time
Reason
Through
" I'm finding out what part of punk culture or white indie culture I actually still want to hold onto - What are the values? What are the contributions that I actually like? - and it not coming from a place of desperation or wanting to be embraced or wanting approval, essentially. "
Kelela
Place
White
Values
" As much as we like to pretend we're just getting on stage and whatever, it's like, no, I practiced in front of the mirror my whole life. "
Kelela
Like
Just
Life
" Growing up in an Ethiopian household allowed me to feel like I had an audience before I had an audience. "
Kelela
Feel
Me
Growing Up
" In Maryland, I didn't grow up around poor white people. Where I grew up, the white people were middle class or upper-middle class. It's interesting how screwed up it is in reality, because most people who receive assistance from the government are white, but not in my head or in my experience. "
Kelela
Reality
Government
Experience
" Popular music was this abstraction - an abstraction that I was relating to immensely but was ultimately far away. "
Kelela
Music
Popular
Far
" It's been hard for me to nail visual language and personal style because I like so many different things. "
Kelela
Personal
Language
Me
" I'm coming from the zone of Faith Evans, but with weird production. "
Kelela
Production
Zone
Coming
" 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. "
Kelela
Put
Cousins
Parents
" 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. "
Kelela
Art
Mind
Business
" As it pertains to my black womanhood, there's just a lot of ground to cover. There's a lot of stuff to say. "
Kelela
Just
Say
Lot