Dress by MIU MIU and choker (worn throughout) stylist’s own

Kelela Mizanekristos is done for the day, clearly. Sitting with a chunk of British weed in one hand and a stroller-heater between her legs, her shoot for Wonderland comes at the end of a frantically paced year for the Maryland-born, LA-based synthologist. “You want some of this?” she asks, pointing her perfectly rolled joint at me. “Go on, then,” I reply. Things were off to a good start.

Despite her seemingly laid back vibe, Kelela’s occasional standoffishness suggests hardship. A child of two first-gen Ethiopian immigrants who, in the 1970s, moved to a very WASP Washington DC, Kelela vividly remembers the rejection she felt from her surroundings. “I related to a black experience, but not culturally from an African-American standpoint,” she explains. “For example, my family didn’t do typical African-American things. My mum has an accent, too, so there are so many things about me that didn’t quite fit in on a social level. I was being ‘othered’ both ways: as a person of colour, and as a person who wasn’t culturally American. It was a lot for me in school.”

Black cropped top Kelela’s own, trousers by MARTINE ROSE and perspex bracelet by CHANEL

From a young age, her musical ambitions overshadowed academia. “I’d be wailing Whitney Houston songs on the table at four years old – they knew music was in me. But they wanted me to have a back-up plan, to study.” Instead, Kelela trawled vintage YouTube clips of Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, Whitney Houston, and Kim Burrell performances. “The thing that I’m trying to find in R&B is an actual sound; it’s like the balsamic in your vinaigrette,” she laughs. “The balsamic is actually the gospel element.”

As a twenty-something, Kelela’s focus lay in LA’s live jazz circuit. “Writing isn’t necessarily the focus in jazz – your standard comes first – and I didn’t find it all the way fulfilling to sing standards,” she says, before quickly adding: “I’m not saying that jazz doesn’t have depth, because it does, but I wouldn’t be able to sit down and write a jazz tune. I remember feeling frustrated all the time in the scene: I was around all of these great jazz musicians and all I wanted to do is sing a Lauryn Hill tune.”

Kelela counts Swedish experi-pop clutch Little Dragon as a key influence, too. In fact, she is obsessed: the singer contacted Yukimi Nagano on MySpace back in 2009 with an enquiry about backing singer vacancies. But with no music to show on Kelela’s page, Nagano urged her come back with material and, two months later, she was the proud owner of three songs. “‘Enemy’ is a break-up tune and I was going through one at the time, so it was natural to write. The songs before that, though, were ‘Bank Head’ and ‘Keep It Cool’, which are the only two happy songs I’ve written [laughs].”

Denim dress by CLAIRE BARROW

Released in October, Kelela’s debut mixtape Cut 4 Me is a haunting, utterly gutter-sounding masterpiece. It was put out via Los Angeles-based label, Fade To Mind – the independent sister of highly influential London-based grime imprint Night Slugs. Fade To Mind is run by producer Kingdom, who grabbed switch-flipping duties on the much-blogged about, rumbling brood-pop track “Bank Head”. Elsewhere, tales of broken relationships and self-discovery are cut into shape by the likes of Nguzunguzu and Nite Slugs’ Girl Unit.

For many, it revives a period in East London grime called Rhythm and Grime, when rumbling synth and bass subs met the lilt of a female R&B vocalist – spearheaded in the mid 2000s by the likes of Hyperdub’s Terror Danjah and singers Sadie Ama and Lauren Mason. “For me, grime is the most honest and gratifying sound,” offers Kelela. “I’ve always loved fucked-up productions. I was into UK Garage when I was in high school, too. I didn’t mind if none of my friends knew who Artful Dodger were.”

White jacket by MARTINE ROSE, jumper and shorts both by CHRISTOPHER SHANNON
and thigh high leather boots by CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN

Cut 4 Me has both a throwback bounce and futuristic sheen: think of it as a mutant offshoot of early-00s Playstation, Fruity Loops, and Ruff Sqwad-influenced two step. It has the Wonderland office cutting shapes one minute (Opener, “Guns & Synths”) and crying into a bottle of red over your ex (Morri$ beat, “Go All Night”), the next.

And her talked-about forthcoming debut LP? She’ll finish it when she’s good and ready, and on her terms. “I’m going to make my album the way I envisioned,” she asserts. “I don’t want anyone telling me how it should sound – I’m not into that. I’m going to sit with every producer and songwriter to make sure the vibe is right. There will be more ‘new grime’ – other fucked-up sounds, too – but like, for real. I’m so excited about it. The levels are definitely going to go up a notch.”

Words Joseph ‘JP’ Patterson
Photographer Sam Bayliss Ibram 
Fashion Editor Jayson Hindley
Makeup Thom Walker using CHANEL LE LIFT S 2014
Makeup Assistance Lo Moorcroft

The post PROFILE: KELELA appeared first on Wonderland.

To be trusted with a verse on a Kanye/Jay-Z track is no mean feat: Beyoncé, Frank Ocean and Otis Redding (oh, and Mr Hudson) all stepped up to the plate on Watch The Throne, then soon after, Detroit’s Big Sean was the fresh first voice on ‘Clique’, their monster hip hop monument to being part of a shit-hot crew.

Big Sean doesn’t just make a token appearance on ‘Clique’ – his rap is the strongest of the lot; the line about being up for nine days and needing a spa day is delivered in some mysterious way that has it hanging permanently in the inner ear, always ready to strike. (For the record, Sean rarely takes spa days, but admits, “I like to keep a nice sweet little female around though, to help calm my nerves.”) And with Kanye also giving his G.O.O.D. Music protégé the opener on ‘Mercy’, he obviously trusts the 25-year-old rapper to make that vital initial impact. Perhaps Yeezy’s still impressed by the balls it took for Big Sean to get his attention in the first place.

“I was doing a show every Friday at a radio station for about a year,” Sean explains. “One day, Kanye was at the station. I was at the bank, cashing my cheque – telemarketing, you know how that goes, making like 150 bucks a week. Anyway, one of my friends called me and was like, ‘Yo man, you listening to the radio? ‘Ye is down at the station. If you go down there and rap for him, he’ll sign you breh.’

“I just remember thinking, ‘That sounds stupid as hell.’ I hung up on him, then I called him back and was like, ‘Nah, that’s an awesome idea.'” So Sean hot-trotted down there and asked Kanye if he could rap for him. “He was like, ‘Man, I ain’t got time.’ I’m like, ‘Man, you my hero, yo! I ride to school listening to you.’ I gave him the super guilt trip, just really making him feel bad! And he was like, ‘Alright, well you can rap as we’re walking out the station.’ He told me I had 16 bars, but I ended up rapping for ten minutes straight. He took my CD, but it took a couple of years for him to actually sign me.” Big Sean soon started making a name for himself on tracks.

with Justin Bieber, Kelly Rowland, Nicki Minaj and Chris Brown, but he’s ready to make more of a solo impression with his second album, Hall of Fame, out this summer. “With my first album, I just wanted to be known and to have a song on the radio, but on Hall of Fame, I want to inspire, I want to make songs that people will remember forever.” Big Sean is all about the big ambitions.

Of course all rappers excel in extreme braggadocio – entire tracks are made from bloated boasts – but there’s a cool confidence here that makes you believe the hype. His European tour has added to that confidence too. As well as toking on Amsterdam weed, getting greazy with London’s Nando’s and visiting cities he’d never heard of, Sean says the crazed crowds have inspired him “to do it bigger and better – it’s good I got to see that before I put the last touches to my album.” Travelling the world and seeing people’s love for his music has been a boost.

A lil’ Big Sean realised he could rap his way out of his birthplace when fellow Detroiter Eminem showed him that one of the world’s biggest artists could come from his hometown. “That was inspiring,” he says, before going on to talk about his own take on the Michigan city. “I grew up in a pretty middle class neighbourhood, but it was pretty hood. There were a lot of bad things going on, but my grandma and my mom saved up for me to go to private school, so I’d have best friends that were white, black, Jewish there, then I’d come home and have super ghetto-ass friends. It was a good balance.”

Speaking of his mom, it’s been rumoured that Big Sean hasn’t had any tattoos because she doesn’t approve. Not true. “I’m just really indecisive. If I get a tattoo, a year later I’ll be like ‘What the fuck was I thinking?’ She doesn’t like tattoos, but she doesn’t like a lot of things that I do!” By this, we gather he’s referring to his lyrics about ass quakes and lines like “I got that mad dick you know it always nut up / And it got attitude no wonder why it’s stuck up.” But like all good artists, he doesn’t worry what the family think. He’d rather speak his mind. Plus, he just bought his mum a brand new house, “so she’s happy.”

Hall of Fame is out 27th August. uknowbigsean.com

Words: Stuart Brumfitt (Follow Stuart on Twitter @stuartbrumfitt)
Styling: Jayson Hindley

The post Blue Sky Thinking with Big Sean appeared first on Wonderland.