Kelela back! The consistently great post-genre artist released Raven, her most recent studio album, in 2023. Last year, she came out with an extremely cool live album called In The Blue Light and collaborated with Green-Light on the TRAИƧA compilation. Today, she returns with "idea 1," a new single that seems to promise bigger things to come.
Kelela recorded "idea 1" with Oscar Scheller, one of the producers of PinkPantheress and Lara Larsson's current smash "Stateside." (PinkPantheress is a big Kelela. In 2003, she recorded the song "Bury Me" with Kelela and brought her onstage to sing it in New York.) Kelela, Scheller, and Kelela's close friend and longtime collaborator Janiva Ellis wrote it together. The song doesn't really have anything to do with club music. Instead, it's a floaty art piece, with Kelela singing over soft drones, ethereal acoustic guitars, and big, hammering power chords. Here's what she says about it:
"idea 1" is about what it feels like to exist in this climate — the weight of being expected to witness, absorb, and speak truth at a time when the world feels like it's unraveling. That's a particular kind of burden Black women know intimately. This song doesn't offer answers, it just refuses to look away. Co-writing it with my best friend Janiva Ellis, hearing Oscar's production give it shape, and then watching 91 Rules bring that tension to life visually feels like the beginning of a much larger conversation I'm ready to have."
Watch the 91 Rules-directed "idea 1" video below.
"idea 1" is out now on Warp.
