Kelela and the Changing Sounds of Underground Dance Music

The latest in pop-culture news, recaps, and reviews, plus close reads, profiles, interviews, and more from Vulture.com. [Brand Logo]( a long talk [Sincerely Kelela]( Raven is her first album in nearly six years. The wait was intentional. Photo: Clifford Prince Kelela’s 2013 debut mixtape, Cut 4 Me, is a wondrous recombinant of flesh and tone, metal and concrete — its industrial clanging, furious dance beats, and warbling synths providing the backbone for a voice that is at once soft and ferocious. She then spent the next decade messing with the knobs and dials, while her longtime collaborators Nguzunguzu, LSDXOXO, Kingdom, and Fauzia grew adept at transforming her sensuality to all measures of textures. Kelela’s second joint, Hallucinogen, became a breakup story told in reverse with its principle cosmonaut wandering the galaxy tethered only by bass and malleable melody. 2017’s Take Me Apart was set squarely on the move — crash-landing on an Earth with crushed blues, where the club feels less like a backdrop and more like a necessary reprieve from the bullshit of a failed romance. [Read More]( 72 Hours Only: Save [over 75%]( on unlimited access to Vulture and everything New York during our Winter Flash Sale. The Latest TV Recaps • Below Deck: [Aye-Aye, Captain]( • The Bachelor: [The Shallcrossian Bargain]( • Summer House: [Bedroom Bingo]( • Perfect Match: [Series Premiere]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( Stories We Think You’ll Like [Cheese: An Annotated History of the Oscar Class Photo The group portraits are back this year — and one nominee is noticeably absent.]( [Lana Del Rey Has a Lot to Say On seven-minute new single “A&W,” and to Billie Eilish in Interview.]( By Justin Curto [The Best Sex I’ve Ever Read: A Long-Censored Queer Tryst at Boarding School “In between all the sex,” explains Carmen Maria Machado, “there’s so much passion in how they talk to each other.”]( [Every Couple on Grey’s Anatomy, Ranked When the OR lights finally go down in Grey Sloan, which couples, for better or for worse, will stand the test of time?]( By Maggie Fremont [Liv.e Isn’t Afraid to ’Shroom at the Club “I’m an edgy bitch regardless. That’s just how I’ve always been.”]( By Craig Jenkins [Caroline Polachek Soundtracks Your Valentine’s Day Yearning On Desire, I Want to Turn Into You.]( By Justin Curto [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [Today’s Crossword]( 9-Down, Four Letters: @champagne___ (Drake’s Instagram handle). Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images Vulture Recommends We consume it all so you don’t have to. “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus is spending another week on top of the Billboard 100 — quite fitting for Valentine’s Day. The disco-country track has gotten people talking for a few reasons, but most notably, Cyrus invokes Bruno Mars’s classic “When I Was Your Man” in both lyrical and melodic allusions. The connection between the two songs is not one of interpolation, but rather, Miley is responding to Bruno’s hit through her own words: making “Flowers” an answer song. [This episode of Switched on Pop](, we take a deeper look at “Flowers” and how it fits in the canon of response songs throughout history, from classics like “This Land Is Your Land” to Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda.” [Read more from Vulture]( [logo]( [facebook logo]( [instagram logo]( [twitter logo]( [unsubscribe](link.nymag.com/manage/588/optout-vulture?email={EMAIL}&hash=39357a76f6d08b16239fd2ffa65e9c6f¶m=vulture-daily) | [privacy notice]( | [update preferences]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. Was this email forwarded to you? [Sign up now]( to get this newsletter in your inbox. [View this email in your browser.]( You received this email because you have a subscription to New York. Reach the right online audience with us For advertising information on email newsletters, please contact AdOps@nymag.com Vox Media, LLC 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, 12th Floor Washington, DC 20036 Copyright © 2023, All rights reserved