Written by: Briana Younger
Photography: Meron Menghistab
Styling: Will Thompson
Kelow LaTesha has seven videos ready to go and two more for which she's waiting to see the final edits. On a chilly November night, during a week that's seen her travel from DC to New York and back again, she's just received the completed version of one of them, and it's got her reeling with excitement, as she's camped out in her car for a quick chat over FaceTime.
The 26-year-old rapper, who was raised in Forestville, MD in Prince George's County, is coming off her most productive year to date. Her 9-track EP, TSA, which was released in April, was supported by videos for over half of the songs, and the process of brainstorming treatments and seeing her visions come to life has given her a burst of energy. Take a look at any of them and the naturalness she exudes in front of the camera comes just as easily behind-the-scenes and, compared to hip-hop at large, can be a revelation: "Hammer Time" proudly thrusts darker-skinned women to the forefront, while "Call Security" a whimsical depiction of a failed wedding, doubles as a celebration of queer, trans, and gender-fluid people.
Longtime fans know that Kelow’s aesthetics have always been crafted as lovingly as her music, but there's some portion of the world who heard her long before they saw her. Her voice is the last one heard on GoldLink's 2017 album At What Cost, offering a profane prayer (also heard at the beginning of the video for "Crew"). The words have become iconic in their own right—a prophecy and a flex rolled into one: "Lord, I pray for wealth and power over all these motherfuckers. For the DMV to reign for many moons..." There may be no better voice than Kelow's to deliver those lines. “Fuck these bitches, you hear me. They killed my nigga and I pray for revenge.” Her accent, like her cool-headed aplomb, is DMV through and through.
It comes as no surprise, then, that she's been an integral part of the modern iteration of the region's hip-hop scene since it was still in its most embryonic stages. She released her first project, Colored Pencils, in 2011—a lighthearted showcase of spacey stoner raps that stood in stark contrast to Fat Trel's street anthems which had begun to make waves. Even then, it was clear Kelow was tuned into her own unique voice. A regular on the local circuit, she frequented the Everlasting Life and Spit Dat open mics where she cut her teeth performing with some of her most talented peers. She, like many of that era, is an OG in her own right for another generation who came of age at a time when the city was churning out viable rappers far quicker than go-go bands. "I'm so happy to see what the younger artists are doing right now. I'm excited for them. I'm excited for us all too—artists my age and older— because it's just like the door is really opening," she says. "It's endless talent out here. And I just want to see everybody win. I mean that shit."
Her fashion sense—often a tomboyish blend of grunge and glamour bound together by her signature long acrylic nails (on this occasion, money green with holographic tips) and her free-flowing locs, usually colorful as well—is also a product of her hometown’s culture. It's a place where being different is a point of pride, where the sidewalk morphs into a runway on any given day and where Kelow, at one point in her pre-loc years, felt comfortable enough to rock pink cheetah print tracks, which she recalls with a laugh. And though her style these days is a little more contained, it remains all her own. "You see that shit in the area all day long. It's endless inspiration, endless people just doing their thing, so I can't really take all the credit," she says. "It is me, but I'm definitely a reflection of all these people around here who are just so creative."
The combination of her looks coupled with her music and prolific presence on social media has made her a charismatic presence both on and offline. It's not exactly rare to see people doting on Twitter claiming Kelow as their bae, but she's coyly amused at the suggestion that she's a sex symbol of sorts. "Of course it's nice to get compliments, but it don't seem real. I'm a bony girl, you know what I'm saying? The most compliments I really take is [about] the way I dress, but that beauty shit? My self-esteem is only building from the way I view it," she says, admitting that on this particular night, she feels whatever ("my baby hairs ain't laid right now!"), but, like anyone, on other days, she's more assured.
“It’s endless talent out here. And I just want to see everybody win. I mean that shit.”
Maintaining awareness about how she’s feeling internally and externally at any given moment is a theme that emerges over and over. She says she learns new things about herself everyday and is constantly working to ensure she’s not taking things for granted and self-correcting where possible. Maxims like "your body is a whole universe in itself" are peppered in her conversations, and in those moments, it seems both appropriate and astounding that she still maintains her day job at a health food market. On the one hand, selling natural herbs and supplements neatly aligns with her holistic view of wellness; on the other, she's thrown herself so fully into her creative endeavors it's hard to believe she even has time to do both. She's an independent artist in the traditional sense of the word; her team consists of a manager and a lawyer, but she insists on being her "own biggest cheerleader" with the understanding that she can only control herself—even and especially when her Pisces emotions threaten to disrupt her peace.
In many ways, Kelow is the perfect rapper for this moment. Outside of the renewed interest in the DMV, which is a small if not serendipitous fact, she embodies the ethos of those who want to see hip-hop evolve into a more progressive and inclusive space. She’s a woman and champion of girl-power who is also in the LGBTQ community and who was spreading the gospel of self-care long before Twitter provided the language and framework to popularize it. If ever there was anyone who embodied the genre’s true potential, Kelow would be on the shortlist. As much as she can come across like a hippie of sorts, she radiates enchanting star power, an expert in the millennial art of transforming just figuring it out into a lifestyle choice. But outside of the records and the internet, she still goes to work, checks on loved ones in the hospital, and gets her car window busted out—twice this year in fact. And in each aspect of her life, she finds opportunities to re-calibrate her outlook or approach. Of the hospital visit: "At the end of the day, no matter what it is—money, a bad attitude, you lost something—all that shit can be replaced. If no one died, you're fucking good." And of the windows: "I just put in a conscious, clear mind, like you've gotta clean shit up. You can't just let shit sit around—organize it, put it in the right place."
It's the kind of wisdom and approach that comes with age, or tragedy, but Kelow's motivation largely seems aimed towards trying to make the best use of her time on the planet—artistically, physically and mentally. That means if she can't find a lesson in the mistakes she's made or fresh perspective in a setback, then those events might as well have been for naught. Her desire for constant evolution and self-improvement is evident in her music. When her single “Finna,” from her 2015 mixtape Amethyst Stoner, dropped, it immediately scanned as a fully-realized version of what she had presented at that point, as clever as it was infectious. But what a difference four years can make. “I've learned how to use my voice, use my instrument better as far as manipulating my tones and practicing my wordplay,” she says, before turning her critiques inward. “But sometimes it was different moments when I took shit too serious, so [now I’m] not worrying about other people's opinions and really enjoying me."
That posture translates pristinely on TSA. Across the EP's nine tracks, she sounds like she's simply having fun. She's nimble with her flows and skillful with her words without ever sacrificing an overarching sense of playfulness—a euphoric and ostentatious exercise in feeling oneself. But she'd be the first to point out it wasn't always this way and that she remains a work in progress. "Sometimes you get lost and you get distracted—you be like 'fuck, what the fuck am I doing?' And then something just happens. Looking at the balance of how much TSA accumulated, I was like, ‘Just off of niggas listening? Oh my god,’” she gasps in satisfied disbelief. “Now it's just like kill, people really do enjoy what I'm doing. But at the end of the day, I really do it ‘cause it makes me feel good. It brings me joy.”
If this decade of Kelow's career was spent in search of the balance between self-care and self-expression, then the next is looking more and more like a perfecting of them both. What was once a more measured approach has been replaced with spontaneity, and where there was uncertainty, there is yet still more that is unknowable but she's finally found peace in that. "I'm not waiting. I'm not holding back no more," she says resolutely. “I let me get in the way with doubts and fears, but now, ain't nothing fucking with me—especially myself.”
Pre-order True Laurels Issue 05 featuring Kelow Latesha.