Just the other day I was listening to Kelela’s excellent live album In The Blue Light from last year and wondering when we’d get some new music, and POW!… here it is. idea 1 is indeed fairly simple and stripped down, but not as disposable as the throwaway name suggests, and perhaps signals a shift in her sound, throwing in distorted, shoegaze-y guitars alongside her familiarly breathy vocal.
“‘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. Co-writing it with my best friend Janiva Ellis, hearing Oscar [Scheller]’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.”
The Predatory Wasp 