Hallucinogen (EP)
Hallucinogen is the debut extended play (EP) by American singer and songwriter Kelela. It was released on October 9, 2015, by Warp Records and Cherry Coffee Music. According to Stereogum, the EP covers the beginning, middle, and end of a relationship in reverse chronological order. Writing and recording In an interview with The Fader, Kelela discussed the inspiration behind each of the songs on Hallucinogen. "A Message" and "Hallucinogen" were recorded at the same session with Arca before Cut 4 Me was finished. She wanted to wait on sharing the Arca stuff because she "wanted to go all the way with her." "A Message" reflects on a relationship that, at that time, had just ended. It's about taking responsibility for how you participated in a relationship and to use the experience to create something completely new for myself. She wrote the song with Arca and then took it to her long-time collaborator and friend Mocky. She stated that most of the time she's "thinking about who's gonna help me evoke the most feelings. Alejandra definitely does that, for sure, and Mocky and I also have that rapport. We can talk about the hardest part of the hard thing to talk about." The second track, "Gomenasai" came from a conversation Kelela had with Nguzunguzu's Asma Maroof about a documentary which discusses black women in popular music for the past 50 years and how they've been discriminated against. Kelela started working on the song over Christmas break in 2014. She wrote most of the song herself, with Sam Dew writing "a little part" as well. Producer Ariel Rechtshaid later helped to "bring it to another level." The song is "a narrative of a woman being the dominant person is the bedroom, but also dealing with someone who doesn't necessarily represent what you think of as a bottom. So, an alpha male who is being dominated by a powerful woman. Essentially, it drives the point home of a powerful man who always wants to be dominated by a powerful woman." "Rewind" started with Kelela hearing a bassline in a song by Obey City. She asked Nugget to "repurpose the bassline and create a Miami bass skeleton around it." They wrote the song together, then she took the song to track and asked Girl Unit "to give me the most resonant Miami bass track in terms of power, and bring it into the trap outro at the end." Then she asked Kingdom "to create a palette that was subverting what was "in," more on the weird side, more representative of the universe that we're coming from. Then, I took both of their parts and blended it together and sprinkled a little bit of Ariel on top of that." The instrumental of "All The Way Down" comes from DJ Dahi who produced that song. Kelela and Jess Glynne wrote the verses together, the next part Kelela wrote with Talay Riley, and Nugget wrote part of the song as well. Dahi played Kelela a version of