Kelela

Kelela Mizanekristos emerged from Los Angeles's experimental jazz scene in the early 2010s, channelling a lineage of Black futurism through R&B's intimate architecture. Her 2013 mixtape Cut 4 Me, produced largely by Fade to Mind affiliates, announced a voice capable of fracturing genre: synthesiser arpeggios collided with trap snares whilst her multi-tracked vocals traced desire's technological mediation. The 2017 debut album Take Me Apart refined this vision, its production (Jam City, Arca, Ariel Rechtshaid) wrapping her melismatic phrasing in spectral electronics that felt both alien and deeply embodied.

Critics recognised her work as reclaiming space within electronic music's often whitewashed histories. Her 2023 follow-up Raven arrived as a statement of Afrodiasporic joy rather than trauma, its Ugandan-influenced polyrhythms and Detroit techno references mapping identity as fluid constellation. Kelela's significance extends beyond sound: she has articulated queer Black womanhood within a genre frequently inhospitable to both, transforming the dancefloor into site of liberation and self-determination. Her precision with timbre makes each release feel like transmission from a more thoughtful future.