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" Sometimes I learn by someone giving me warnings and giving me advice about what to do next. And other times, a lot of times, I have to put my hand into the fire. "

Kelela

Learn

Giving

Fire

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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. "

" When I started making songs, some of them read as mixtape-y, and some of them read as album-y. "

" My queer black women peers are the ones who make me not feel crazy. The way we act is so instinctive. "

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

" I'm definitely seeking to challenge tropes. "

" Growing up in an Ethiopian household allowed me to feel like I had an audience before I had an audience. "

Kelela

Feel

Growing Up

" 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 guess the bottom line is I don't make music that is consumed en masse. "

" 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. "

" I would say Tracy Chapman was the first time I obsessed over an entire record. I knew every song; I knew the exact amount of seconds between each song. That's the level of obsession that I had. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" I do like things the way that I like them. But I'm trying not to be - I don't wanna be that way. I'm not a control freak; I wanna protect my agency. It's a weird question as a black woman. "

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

" 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 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. "

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

Kelela

Trying

Smart

" The act of me just being robust in the world is so radical - it's so radical for a black woman to think she's going to be a star, because it takes so much to get there. It's still a battle every day, but I feel happy because I feel like I cracked the code and figured out how to work through it. Now I want to give the map to other women. "

" '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

" 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. "

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

" Most artists are going into the studio for a fixed period of time, and they say that's their album. I can't relate, because I've never made music in that way. I come from a culture of editing and remixing. "

" 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. "

" There are no black women geniuses that are being named in canons. I could name a bunch, but it's not part of common knowledge. It's not how the world is taught to think about black women. "

" 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. "

Kelela

Think

Music

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

" 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. "

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

Kelela

Stupid

Something