All Day with Kalae
Kalae All Day reps Harlem ... well, all day but, on a particularly warm fall afternoon, I managed to convince her to come downtown for some apple cider donuts to talk about her soft spot for 'Brooklyn Boys,' her upcoming appearance at Brooklyn Bodega’s Show and Prove and AFROMATIKNEOHIPPIEROCK*SOLEMUSIK.
On stage from a young age, singing in the choir at Harlem School of the Arts, being in front of an audience has always been a where she belongs. “I just knew ever since then, there was no question in my mind. ... How do I adjust to being out here is what I want to know. The stage is home. Everything else is like being out into the weird spaces in the world.”
Kalae has a confidence and self-assuredness that is well beyond her newly acquired 21 years. “I see like this: This is my destiny, you know? So everything has already been written. I’m just acting shit out. I’m going through the motions ... Amazing motions but, everything is meant to be.“ She’s quick to point out that her music is not purely hip hop and that she’s “influenced by so many things. Right now, I’m inspired by this sun and the way that is just shining on me.” She laughs and goes on to name Michael Jackson, Erykah Badu and most notably Jimi Hendrix, an influence that is evident in her style as she dons a big Afro and sunglasses that are seemingly straight out of the ‘60s.
She calls her sound “AFROMATIKNEOHIPPIEROCK*SOLEMUSIK,’ a fusion of all the music and sounds that are, according to her, ingrained in her bones. “I do any genre that I feel like. It’s not a hip hop thing - it’s a hip hop thing because I’m in hip hop culture but, I infuse all types of shit into my music. If I were to play something for you right now, it’s not necessarily gonna sound that way next week.“ Kalae has versatility in her sound, both as a vocalist and an emcee; her flow blends into vocalizing and vice versa making it easy to change up her style - she laughs, “maybe next week I’ll decide I want to be a funk artist!”
“Have you ever met a Brooklyn boy? They’re fantastic aren’t they?” A lot of this year’s buzz around Kalae All Day has come about in large part due to her remix of Charles Hamilton’s song “Brooklyn Girls.“ “My inspiration for writing ‘Brooklyn Boys’ was not from hearing to Charles Hamilton’s song; it was actually from meeting all these Brooklyn boys and being like ‘Ya’ll are fan-fucking-tastic! I don’t even understand what’s going on in the world where all of ya’ll are from Brooklyn.‘” Kalae calls BedStuy’s Sputnik, where she recently took the stage with MC Lyte and Jean Grae, her home base where the crowd is always feeling the song, but “Brooklyn is everywhere. So even if my show was in Harlem singing that song they’d be going crazy.”
Brooklyn Bodega, behind the annual Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival (BHF), holds a bi-monthly series called Show and Prove which showcases four up-and-coming emcees. This month’s Show Prove, dubbed “Something for the Ladies,” is the first all-female Show and Prove; it’s the first time that a female emcee will be featured in the series at all. “I’m kind of like, this is really history!” Sharing the stage at Williamsburg’s Public Assembly will be Philly’s Zarinah, Gypsy Flesh repping the Bronx and the mysterious GNU (Group Name Unknown).
Before the Show and Prove showcase, Kalae made a few appearances, with some of her fellow Show and Prove emcees on Brooklyn Bodega’s radio show, airing every Friday on pncradio.fm. A majority of the conversation revolved around the supposed lack of women in hip hop and their past, present, and future role in the game. Truthfully, female emcees are everywhere; if you head uptown, you’ll find many at the Femme Fatale jam session that she hosts in Harlem every other Thursday, which is “all about supporting and uplifting each other and bonding to remove the hating and competitive attitudes that are bring females down.”
Show and Prove will hopefully prove to be Kalae’s launch pad. “Everybody has goals and aspirations but I don’t set a timeline on these things. I think that because it’s written, it happens when it will.” She’s currently putting the finishing touches on her first mixtape, a 17-track (including 3 interludes) featuring the production talents of the world over and is executive produced by Princess SuperStar. “She’s been in the game for about 15 years. I’m so honored that she’s doing this for me. And I’m also going to be on her upcoming album to be released in Europe next year.”
“AFROMATIKNEOHIPPIEROCK*SOLEMUSIK” truly, genuinely encompasses everything that is Kalae All Day. “I’m a good person and I have a positive message. I like to think that I uplift wherever I go. I don’t put a downer on people’s spirits. I’m not trying to sell you something materialistic or sexual or anything like that.” Her smile beams like the sun that had shone on her through the trees all day as she says, “I’m trying to give the consciousness of light. So even if you don’t like me, you’re gonna like me.“
(Photo credit: Steven “Lucky” Benson)
