‘We can find renewal despite the bullshit we navigate as Black women’: Kelela on stan armies and speaking up for Gaza

The genre-bending R&B artist’s new album finds fresh focus for her uncompromising vision, blending soul, sex and shoegaze More than most musicians on a typical promo cycle, Kelela has been appearing on my social feeds in increasingly surreal combinations. In one clip , she blows kisses to an enormous crowd of onlookers on the streets of Soho New York; another sees her posing for fans against a fog-strewn background somewhere between South Central and survivalist video game Silent Hill. In the video for idea 1 the singer saunters down a corridor with windswept silver hair, looking like Storm if the X-Men movies had been directed by Hype Williams. In a widely circulated tribute/parody, the track is synced uncannily well to a cut of RuPaul in the 90s strutting her stuff to the song’s throbbing guitar, while sporting a remarkably similar sleek, platinum blonde wig. “If there were a fan competition amongst artists, I feel like I would win,” the actual Kelela tells me when we meet at a recording studio in east Williamsburg, New York. “No shade to nobody! Continue reading...