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" 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

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" We are - as artists, we are racialized through genre and called black - without being called black - through genre. "

" 'Take Me Apart' doesn't feel cohesive in a singular way but in a varied way. You can fixate on individual songs, and there are references from all over the place: Anita Baker to Bjork. I wanted to show all the facets of myself. "

Kelela

You

Way

" 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. "

Kelela

Saying

Experience

" 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. "

" In the music industry, you can't create success without having to engage a white man. It's just not possible. Whether it's executives, A&Rs, and the people that hold the key to your paper, inevitably, you'll be met with whiteness. "

" I want to empower. "

Kelela

Want

Empower

" 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. "

" 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. "

" A lot of white men in the music industry are promoting and participating in black culture in a way that is pretty careless. They want the currency of blackness, but they don't want the brunt that comes along with that. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" It's gratifying to hear something familiar and challenging at the same time. "

" It is very rare that I am just coming up with melodies off the top of my head. I usually am responding to something - it could be chains dragging on the floor - but I am usually responding to something. "

" I'm coming from the zone of Faith Evans, but with weird production. "

" When I was growing up... I'm not going to say I listened to everything, but when it comes to vocals, I was really adamant about imitating all kinds of voices. "

Kelela

Growing

Everything

" I don't want you to feel defeated, like, 'Oh boy, why do you do this to me?' We have too many of those songs. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I have something stupid, like, 12 credits, to graduate. "

Kelela

Stupid

Something

" As it pertains to my black womanhood, there's just a lot of ground to cover. There's a lot of stuff to say. "

" 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

Just

Life

" The whole thing about 'progressive R&B' blows my mind. Black music has always been progressive. "

" 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. "

" The goal is to blow the audience's mind. "

" We don't want it to be obscure music. We're not trying to be indie. We want to be popular. "

" I've talked about that with friends, about what genre makes sense to choose for each record and the strategy around that... Sometimes it's more about the moment of time, and other times it's more about the sound of the song. Sometimes it's about what's going on in larger life, in politics. "

" I want to soundtrack people's layered feelings. "

" I like smart rappers who aren't necessarily trying to be deeper than you, like Danny Brown. "

Kelela

Trying

Smart

" I know deep down I'm a star. "

" I don't care about the underground, even if that's where I'm currently residing sonically. "