Kelela Treadin- Water -raven Outtake That Was... -

Raven was not merely a collection of songs; it was a cohesive statement. Released after a six-year hiatus following her debut Take Me Apart , the album found Kelela interrogating her place in a world that often feels hostile to her existence. Tracks like "Washed Away" and "Happy Ending" dealt with themes of erasure, endurance, and the quest for intimacy in the face of isolation. The production—handled by heavy hitters like Kaytranada, BbyMutha, and ambient duo FKA twigs—is characterized by deep, cavernous bass, liquid synthesizers, and a sense of underwater suspension.

What little we have sonically is haunting. The piano chord is a D minor 9th—a chord that in jazz theory is often called the “lonely major” because it can’t decide between minor sorrow and major hope. The water sounds were not a sample, but a field recording of Kelela filling a bathtub in her Los Angeles apartment at 3 a.m. “I wanted the sound of maintenance ,” producer LSDXOXO allegedly said in a deleted tweet. “Not an ocean. A bathtub. Because grief is small. It’s domestic. It’s you, alone, trying not to slip under the faucet.”

The song's production mirrors the album's core aesthetic—a fusion of , drum and bass , and jungle . Fans have noted that it feels like a natural companion to tracks like "On the Run" or "Closure," though some argue its "unfinished" or slightly different lyrical focus might be why it was ultimately excluded. Why Was It Cut? Kelela Treadin- Water -Raven Outtake That Was...

If you ever find a high-quality file labeled “Kelela – Treadin’ Water (Raven Outtake)”—do not share it. Just listen once. Let it pull you under. Then come up for air, grateful that Kelela let you, and herself, survive.

The album Raven draws from Ethiopian mythology (Kelela is of Ethiopian descent), where the raven is sometimes a trickster, sometimes a messenger between the living and the dead. In “Treadin’ Water,” the raven on the shoreline is not helping. It is simply observing . This is the cruelest cut of all: the recognition that no deity, no spirit animal, will reach a hand into the water to save you. The raven’s silence is the song’s true subject. Raven was not merely a collection of songs;

“My arms are getting heavy / But the shore’s a myth / If I stop now, will you pull me in? / Or just watch me drift?”

To understand what this lost track represents, we must first wade into the waters Kelela deliberately left uncharted. Why would a song so achingly beautiful, so perfectly aligned with the album’s central metaphor of buoyancy and surrender, be left on the cutting room floor? And what can this phantom track tell us about the nature of grief, artistic restraint, and the secrets hidden beneath Raven’s pristine surface? The water sounds were not a sample, but

"Could you meet me in the water baby? / Could you meet me in the middle baby?" Themes of Fear and Flow:

Recorded between 2018 and 2023, the song belongs to a period of intense creative exploration where Kelela focused on "building tracks" that existed between established sounds of R&B and experimental electronic music. Collaboration: The song originally featured a verse by rapper Junglepussy (who also contributed to the