Pitchfork: In terms of your development as a person—as a human being—what has been going on with you over the last couple of years, as you gain fans and attention?

Kelela: I’ve been a black girl my whole life, but being a visible black girl involves stuff I didn’t even know I was signing up for, and didn’t really understand initially. Early on, when I was offered an opportunity, I would say yes because I was so excited that somebody even wanted to hit me up to do anything. But then I put myself in that space, and it didn’t feel good—there have been so many lessons around having to stick up for myself.

There is this feeling among black artists that you have to be really careful. We’re not inclined to talk about this stuff because, if we do, we put ourselves in a position where we’re not marketable, or where we can’t win.

Can you talk specifically about instances of racism and sexism that you’ve experienced in the industry?

Not without putting specific people out there. In the part of the music industry that I’m operating in, the people who have positions of power are white men. There is this feeling, like, “You want me to be black but you don’t want me to be black.”

A lot of white men in the music industry are promoting and participating in black culture in a way that is pretty careless. They want the currency of blackness but they don’t want the brunt that comes along with that.

Yet you seem like an artist who can make your own choices artistically. In what ways has your vision been limited by the control of other people?

The notion that you know what you’re doing with your own art—that whatever is innovative about your work is coming from you—is something that is more easily awarded to black men than black women artists. My experience is that none of the people in those positions of power think that I know what I’m doing.

I’m still trying to understand and figure out a way to talk about it because I’m so implicated and because the risk that I’m taking in talking to you about it is quite powerful.

The risk in terms of what?

As far as the very practical nature of being able to sustain a career. There’s a way that you need the help of others in positions of power in the music industry in order to make things fully happen and for you to get your message out to your audience, even. Those people are often the gateway.