A Quote by Kelela

When I started making songs, some of them read as mixtape-y, and some of them read as album-y. — © Kelela
When I started making songs, some of them read as mixtape-y, and some of them read as album-y.
And tell them all about the books you've read. Better still, buy some more books and read them. That's an order. You can never read too many books.
For every album we worked on, I brought in reels of tape of somewhere between fourteen and eighteen songs - some of them completed, with lyrics and melodies, some of them basic tracks. Things came out of those products. Like, for 'Hotel California', I think I had a reel with sixteen songs on it.
Some like them hot,some like them cold. Some like them when they're not to darn old Some like them fat,some like them lean. Some like them only at sweet sixteen. Some like them dark,some like them light. Some like them in the park,late at night. Some like them fickle,some like them true, But the time I like them is when they're like you
I have to go into the studio to make my second album knowing I'm making an album. When I first started making songs I didn't have an album in mind, that's why a lot of them I like - I'm talking about how I haven't got a deal, how I'm living, you can never really top the first time, but we'll see how it goes.
With God's help, I've not had a drink in nine and a half years. That's my whole story right there. And because of that, I'm doing this. I'm making records, I'm touring. I was so involved in just getting brain damaged, I wasn't doing anything. I had great ideas, many notebooks filled with notes, some of them I can read and some of them I just can't read, but I really didn't do anything constructive, it was all just good ideas. Now I'm trying to lead a constructive life a day at a time.
My advice to writers is: READ! A lot. Then read some more. read, read, read, read!
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
It would be unfair to say that I prefer the back of a book to its contents, but it is true that the sight of a lot of books gives me the hope that I may some day read them, which sometimes develops into the belief that I have read them.
Some of the fanmail is interesting! Some of it's the lyrics to the songs and stuff, and they'll like, send me their favourite lines, which is cool to...know what people are liking. Most of them are really cool to read.
I'm just doing what I've done my whole life, which is talking to people about books and making them read. It's what I do in my friendships. "Here, you have to read this, you have to read this."
I think the old school, back in the day, 10 to 15 years ago in music, is like you launch one single and you just let that ride out. Right now, you've got folks like Chris Brown, he just won't let up, he's got mixtape after mixtape, they're playing songs on the radio from the mixtape and then he's got songs on the album and videos and he's got remixes he's jumping on.
I read everything. I'll read a John Grisham novel, I'll sit and read a whole book of poems by Maya Angelou, or I'll just read some Mary Oliver - this is a book that was given to me for Christmas. No particular genre. And I read in French, and I read in German, and I read in English. I love to see how other people use language.
There's always a group of songs that I'm working at. Some of them are 10 years old, and some of them are just a few weeks old. I'm always trying to adjust these songs to some position where I can bring them to completion.
To my undying shame, I do read reviews. I don't read them all, but I like to get some kind of idea how things are going.
As a historically voracious reader - pre-baby, I averaged a book every week or two, and when I was a kid, I'd routinely read a book a day - I never understood how some people could not read. When I heard people say they didn't have time to read, in my head, I simultaneously pitied and ridiculed them: there was always time to read.
I read some of my stories recently and thought, 'How in the hell did I get away with that?' I had some really raw cynicism in some of them.
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