KIESZA: KICKSTARTS HER HEART

In 2014 she skipped and weaved her way down a deserted street in Brooklyn’s warehouse district while filming the video for “Hideaway” — the radiant electro-pop single off her debut album, Sound Of A Woman. The video went viral, the track zoomed up the UK charts thrusting Kiesza into the international limelight. 

In the years that followed she collaborated with DJ heavyweights Skillet and Diplo, made a guest appearance on Duran, Duran’s 2015 album Paper Gods, wrote songs for Rhianna, dropped in on other high-profile projects and danced up a storm on sold-out stages around the globe. 

Then, in 2017, tragedy struck. While taking an Uber in downtown Toronto the vehicle was T-boned in a collision leaving Kiesza with a severe traumatic brain injury. She lost her sense of motion, sense of self, she couldn’t perform and was confined to a darkened room for a number of months. 

“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through,” recalls Kiesza. “It’s like getting struck by lightning if your song takes off, especially when you’re an independent artist. And I had worked so hard to get to that point where my career just was flying. Then suddenly, the rug was pulled out from under me and I was bedridden, unable to even control my own thoughts because your brain controls your whole body. When your brain is injured, you kind of lose yourself. Not only my career, my social life and my activities, but I lost myself for a very long time. It was like being in a body that wasn’t functioning. Just wasn’t doing what I was asking it to do.”

Rehabilitation took time. Regaining her physical and mental strength was a slow, agonizing  process, And just as she was getting back her stride and leaving one quarantine, another hit — Covid. Undeterred, Kiesza released her second album, the upbeat ‘80s dance-driven Crave that included “Love Me with Your Lie” and Its smouldering video where Kiesza steps out wearing erotic black leather, lace and sexy S&M gear.

“Oh man, we really struggled during the pandemic. I wanted to get on stage with a roll out plan — i just wanted my heart to move again. Then suddenly, the pandemic hit, and we had to stop. But yeah… my club fans really loved that one,” she says, acknowledging the track’s steamy visuals.  

“My next album is all dance, start to finish... It’s the most complete expression of myself that I’ve ever put out in my entire life as an artist, taking folk and infusing it with house and dance."

Then in a total turnabout, Kiesza left her residence in Los Angeles and retreated to the deep woods of Norway, a far cry from clubland. Initially she went to the Norwegian town of Lillehammer to participate in a performance workshop for aspiring young artists held at Limpi — a creative, think-different institute dedicated to progressive music education. 

“The beautiful thing about it, the students leave the school really believing in themselves,” Kiesza “They start realizing that they don’t need someone else to help and that they can self heal, they can self build, they can pave their own path. They can be their full, authentic self. And there’s a place for it in the world. You know, younger people, or just people in general, they think they have to emulate other people or copy other people to be accepted. But when they become their full self, that’s when people connect the most.” 

She adds, “It’s really beautiful to experience them going through that process. Then ultimately gaining this confidence in themselves and believing in themselves fully and starting to take risks that they weren’t taking before onstage and with their songwriting and production. They start diversifying, and you see the diversity in each person start to search for themselves and put that into their music. For me, that’s just one of the most amazing things to see.”

Kiesza realized that providing insight and guidance to students at Limpi also helped her work through her own PTSD experience still lingering from the Uber accident. While in Norway, New York-based Haitian producer Francis Mercier reached out to her and they cooked up the joyous house-infused Afrobeat track “Egyptian Sun.” Reset was underway, doors began to open, Kiesza found herself digging soul deep and pushing it straight out. 

“My next album is all dance, start to finish,” she says. “It’s the most complete expression of myself that I’ve ever put out in my entire life as an artist, taking folk and infusing it with house and dance. It’s very eclectic for a dance album, I tried to make it that way. Every song is very different, but it’s also very seamlessly put together so they all stand alone. I wanted to make sure that every song in the album was competing as my favourite song. I didn’t want to throwaways. I didn’t want any albums fillers, I wanted to believe in every song.”

Arts Commons Presents brings PARTY IN THE PLAZA with Kardinal Offishall and Kiesza to the Olympic Plaza Wednesday, August 30

ARTSCOMMONS.CA/PARTY