Meet Kelela, the singer-songwriter who knows her worth and wants the world to know it

Kelela is known for her great instincts. So when the American singer-songwriter’s latest album, New Avatar, was immediately embraced by fans and critics as a modern classic, she wasn’t surprised. There’s a feeling you get when you’re making something that good.“Oscar [Scheller, her producer] and I were definitely feeling that feeling,” she says warmly, speaking to me on the phone from her New York apartment on a rare day off touring — a tour that will soon take her to London, where she’ll play to a sold-out crowd at Brixton’s O2 Academy.The 43-year-old Washington, DC native (full name Kelela Mizanekristos) practically radiates peaceful self-assurance. But she’s also a realist. “It’s probably the most commercial record I’ve ever made, so there was definitely an inclination that it was going to bring new people in,” she offers.Kelela released New Avatar this yearNeva WirekoAcclaim isn’t a strong enough word for the response to New Avatar. The album, which feels like it should be blasting out of a car radio on GTA: Gotham, emulsifies Kelela’s oozing vibrato with jagged guitars and beats that skitter away like insects.Shoegaze, R&B, trip-hop, electronic and jazz influences are welded together to form something so distinctly “of the moment” that it feels like kismet.In a time when a lot of electronic-leaning pop acts are picking up guitars (Charli xcx, Slayyyter), New Avatar might feel conveniently timed, but Kelela has history in this place that far predates trends. Growing up, she was a part of a short-lived indie band called Dizzy Spells on the underground DC scene. Outta Time, her collaboration with AK Paul on the new record, may seem like it suits its 2026 birth certificate, but was actually conceived as early as 2017. Miraculously, a near-decade-old song perfectly suited New Avatar’s sound.“I love that for me,” Kelela laughs, “it was like my thesis was proven correct.” “I have lived so many musical lives”So why did the track once destined for her debut album, 2017’s Take Me Apart, get held back for so long? “At the time, it felt like, ‘These ones are for this [project], and then these other ones, I don’t know where they go yet, but I know that this one is very guitary, and I feel like there is a whole world of sound that I have not pursued yet that I need to place this into.’“I have lived so many musical lives,” she continues. “I think people generally spend time in one scene, and they move deeply into that one scene. But I would say that my trajectory has been more one of like passing through many different scenes.”Kelela will be performing at the O2 Brixton Academy on November 4Edwina HayGrowing up as a second-generation EthiopianAmerican immigrant in DC, Kelela’s father exposed her to jazz music at an early age and took her to her first opera at the Kennedy Centre. She sang first in her school’s choir, then at local cafés, where she’d perform jazz standards, and then for Dizzy Spells. As an adult, she became deeply woven into the New York club scene, befriending electronic artists, frequenting queer parties and informing her sound.With an ultra-broad range of influences to choose from, Kelela takes pride in her sense of timing. “I have a lot of curatorial patience,” she says. “For just like, ‘This isn’t the time for this right now. I haven’t built the house for this yet.’” This can come at a cost: long wait periods between albums, for example, can feel risky in an industry that tends to punish patience rather than reward it. But for Kelela, this is a non-negotiable. “Maybe there’s another person who’s really good at doing it quickly; I am just not. I’m not that artist,” she says. Kelela first sang in her school’s choir, then at local cafés, where she’d perform jazz standardsGettyAnd yet, that innate timing has allowed her to create this album that was perfectly placed on the pulse, even if it wasn’t intentional.“I think it’s really interesting when similar sounds are being explored by different artists in a time period without us ever trading notes,” she says.One of the only other features on New Avatar comes from British singer-producer PinkPantheress, who lends her softly spoken vocals to club liaison track The Bridge.In February, PinkPantheress made history as the first woman to win Producer of the Year at the Brit Awards, and her meteoric rise can be partly attributed to the success of her self-produced remix album, Fancy Some More? While remix albums have become a mainstay of the so-called “pop girlies” of the 2020s, they weren’t always so popular — nor were they always self-produced. Back in 2015, Kelela’s Hallucinogen EP was shipped off for remixing without her signing on as producer. “After that, I was like, ‘We’re never doing this again,’” she remembers. “The culture of remixing at that time was very much: send the song to the really big — mainly white — DJs, pay the producer, and get your remix. It was not about being a good fit.”Kelela has taken the reins for every remix album since, crediting Mariah Carey — who revolutionised R&B and hip-hop collaboration-style remixes in the 1990s and 2000s — for the current approach. “I think it’s really interesting when similar sounds are being explored by different artists in a time period without us ever trading notes”“[What Mariah did] felt so synthesised and delicious, and a lot of the remixes became more popular than the originals,” she says. Of the disconnected remix culture of the 2000s, she says: “It had a lot to do with whiteness. There was just a way where it felt it had lost its cultural roots.”This is part of a scourge Kelela has dubbed “sonic racism” — the undervaluing or pigeonholing of artists in genres typically considered as black. While she does think there’s more respect for R&B as a genre today compared to 20 years ago, she maintains that it is undervalued and often fulfilling your own dreams is the way. “You’re already kind of f***ed it if you’re coming from a place of trying to fulfil someone else’s expectations miscategorised. “I think pop music is R&B,” she says. “The whole code for pop is embedded in R&B.” The way an artist is categorised often has little to do with sound and everything to do with race, she notes. “This girl singing the same run [as a black singer] equals pop, because she’s white. If it’s Kelly Clarkson, if it’s Zara Larsson, it’s pop. But what we’re talking about is R&B writers, black people writing white people’s songs.”Kelela also gets pigeonholed in a very different type of way — by her own fans, who assume she doesn’t want more success. On a recent podcast, Kelela argued that this isn’t the case, saying she doesn’t need to be “your fave’s fave,” but could in fact be “your fave”.It might come as a surprise to some. “I think a lot of people assume that I just don’t want that,” she tells me. She references comments online where fans are in disbelief over “why Kelela doesn’t have more listeners”, or more praise.“And then there would be somebody [in the replies] being like, ‘We don’t know if she even wants that! She could be doing this on purpose,’ and it’s like, no, I’m definitely not doing this on purpose!” she jokes.Kelela says she doesn’t want a ‘Brat moment’GettyAn explosive, mainstream “Brat” moment might not be Kelela’s idea of hell. In fact, it’s something she’s entirely open to. “In no way, shape or form am I like, ‘Please, no Brat moment,’” she laughs. “If something that I made resonated with people and the masses in that way, I would be really happy, and I might make different choices, but it would be very welcome for sure.”As for now, Kelela is just pleased she’s still able to make music. Making music that’s received well, or has cultural impact, is merely a bonus. “I did think it would be over by the time I was like 27, 28,” she says. After creating her very first mixtape, she was so pleased with it that she was ready to give up right there and then. “I was like, OK, this does feel like this is something I could stand by and also sleep at night. If nobody f***ed with it, I would still be like, ‘I ate.’”This ethos has driven her throughout her career. “I think coming from that place — fulfilling your own dreams and aspirations - is the way. You’re already kind of f***ed it if you’re coming from a place of trying to fulfil someone else’s expectations.” That being said, expectations for a potential New Avatar remix album are particularly high. Can we expect one? “There will never be an album that I release that doesn’t have a remix,” she says decisively. Like I said, great instincts.