Kelela targets wider market with rock-influenced album
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 Stor
Kelela has released New Avatar, her third studio album, marking a deliberate shift from pure electronic music to a "two-thirds guitar, one-third dance music" format. The record arrives as the artist leverages a recent wave of social media virality to capture what she describes as "untold scores of new listeners." This represents a stark commercial contrast to her previous, more insular work.
For a decade, since her 2013 mixtape Cut 4 Me, Kelela has operated as a crucial influence on the underground club music economy. Her ability to merge pop hooks with regional club beats has directly expanded the commercial viability of her demographic. "Her work has easily widened the market and opened doors for other Black female electronic/pop artists," said PinkPantheress, who features on Kelela's new single The Bridge. "I truly believe that because of her we have more room to experiment and not stick to the status quo."
The new album functions as an explicit commercial reversal of the strategy behind her prior record, Raven. Kelela attributed the creative hurdles of that period to the pressures of "white supremacy and capitalism." "I never made Raven as a bring-in record," she said, noting it lacked big singles and was made "for people who were already here."
To execute this pivot, Kelela consolidated a reliable core team of producers, including Oscar Scheller and Asma Maroof, alongside artistic director Mischa Notcutt and painter Janiva Ellis. The album's rock-oriented sound draws on what she terms her "White Bag" playlist, consisting of music previously sold to her as "white music" that she enjoyed. By filtering her R&B vocals through shoegaze reverb and rock instrumentation, she is positioning the project to capture a broader audience.
This strategic shift is underpinned by a solid foundation of live and collaborative commercial proof. Kelela is currently navigating a sold-out tour and boasts a history of high-profile partnerships with Gorillaz, Solange and Danny Brown. New Avatar is effectively a calculated effort to translate long-standing underground cultural capital into a larger, more diversified market share.
