new avatar is arriving this July
Moving through Black femme rage, joy as defiance, romantic tension, misogynoir, and dystopian cityscapes reminiscent of a cybernetic Gotham, new avatar sees Kelela turning toward the guitar as both weapon and world-building device. Threading together fragments of lived experience into a body of work rooted in connection, survival, and emotional resistance amidst unrest, the record stretches Kelela’s experimental sensibilities into deeper, even more saturated alternative indie territories.
Back in her 2018 conversation with Glamcult, Kelela spoke candidly about vulnerability, community, and the importance of Black women controlling their own narratives within music and fashion spaces. At the time, her album “Take Me Apart” existed as a radical exercise in emotional honesty — tracing intimacy, heartbreak, desire, and uncertainty through futuristic R&B textures. Distinguishing between inclusivity and tokenisation, Kelela also unpacked the dilemmas Black women artists like herself continue to face, resisting industry frameworks that flatten experimentation into trend or representation into spectacle.
That same defiant clarity pulses through new avatar. But where Take Me Apart unfolded like an intimate emotional dissection, the forthcoming July release expands outward into something more dystopian, political, and physically charged. Then and now, Kelela continues to push back against the tendency for women in electronic music to have their vision reduced to the men around them, firmly centering herself as the architect of her sonic universe.
Just a few more weeks left to wait before new avatar lands on July 10, but we’re already queueing it up.
Image courtesy of the Artist
