Kiesza

Reinventing the sonic textures of the 1980s and 1990s for contemporary listeners, Juno Award-winning vocalist and composer Kiesza crafts dance-driven material that fuses house, EDM, R&B, and synth pop. Her breakthrough 2014 single “Hideaway,” later included on the same year’s debut LP Sound of a Woman, merged vintage house’s soulful singing and driving rhythm with the crisp, streamlined production values of the present. She quickly established herself as a sought-after collaborator, lending her voice to recordings by Skrillex, Diplo, and Duran Duran while co-writing material with Gorgon City and additional partners. After a serious car accident forced a temporary hiatus, she re-emerged as a more autonomous and resolute artist with the buoyant, polished 2020 follow-up Crave.

Calgary native Kiesza immersed herself in theater and tap dance while pursuing ballet training, an endeavor that ended abruptly with a knee injury at age 15. The next year she joined the Sail and Life Training Society, and at 17 she enlisted in the reserves of the Royal Canadian Navy, where she worked as a code breaker. During this period she picked up guitar skills at informal crew gatherings. At 18 she began composing her own material and entered the Miss Universe Canada competition. After leaving military service she enrolled at Selkirk College in Nelson, British Columbia, studying keyboard, voice, and guitar, then earned a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston. Relocating to New York City in 2010 prompted her to incorporate more energetic dance elements into her style. In 2013 she guested on “Triggerfinger,” a single by the Norwegian synth-pop group Donkeyboy. She also teamed with producer Rami Samir Afuni to record the 2014 EP Hideaway. Released that April, the title track climbed to the summit of the U.K. and Scottish singles charts and gained substantial American radio exposure when it arrived stateside in July. She followed with a languid, atmospheric reinterpretation of Haddaway’s 1993 chart-topper “What Is Love?” Her next official release, “Giant in My Heart,” debuted in June 2014 and peaked at number four on the U.K. Singles Chart.

Sound of a Woman, her first full-length project, reached stores in October 2014. Blending house-rooted pop with hip-hop-inflected cuts and featuring guest spots from Mick Jenkins and Joey Bada$$, the album climbed to number 40 on the U.K. Albums Chart, number 42 on the Billboard 200, and number one on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums tally. Around the same time she appeared on “Take Ü There,” the flagship single from Skrillex and Diplo’s Jack Ü project, while “Go All Night,” a song she co-wrote, surfaced on Gorgon City’s debut album Sirens. By year’s end she had collected nominations for the MTV Europe Music Awards and the BBC Music Awards. Early 2015 brought the Juno Award for Breakthrough Artist of the Year, a Single of the Year trophy for “Hideaway,” and the Dance Recording of the Year honor for Sound of a Woman.

Capitalizing on the momentum of “Hideaway” and Sound of a Woman, Kiesza joined Demi Lovato on tour, contributed to Duran Duran’s 2015 album Paper Gods, and penned tracks for Rihanna and Swedish pop artist Loreen. She resurfaced in January 2017 with the single “Dearly Beloved,” a tribute to her former college classmate Alicia Lemke, the lead singer of Alice and the Glass Lake who succumbed to leukemia in 2015. Recording the track, she enlisted producer Stuart Price and performed on one of Lemke’s guitars. That March she featured on Pitbull’s Climate Change and Cerrone’s Red Lips. June brought the release of “Don’t Want You Back,” her collaboration with Dutch producer Bakermat.

Shortly after the single’s launch, Kiesza suffered a traumatic brain injury in a taxi collision. Months of recovery followed before she gradually resumed songwriting alongside producer Chris Malinchak. Together they issued the 2018 singles “Mother,” “Weird Kid,” and “3 Hos,” while she also released “Phantom of the Dance Floor” featuring opera singer Philippe Sly. In 2019 she partnered with Rat City on “Naked (With My Headphones On)” and issued “Sweet Love,” the inaugural release on her own Zebra Spirit Tribe imprint. Additional tracks paved the way for the August 2020 arrival of her uplifting sophomore album Crave, an ’80s-inflected collection drawing from synth pop, rave, and freestyle.