This is the Pitchfork Review. I'm Jeremy Larson, the review's director here at Pitchfork.

Pooja has the week off, and so here I am.

And today, we're talking about the latest release from Kalella, the R&B Experimentalist Supreme.

The album is called Raven.

It is her first official LP in five and a half years.

And her upcoming tour sold out basically on the advance of three singles ahead of the album.

Very exciting.

So to jump right in, I am joined by senior editorial producer Eric Torres and editorial fellow Heaven Highley.

Welcome to you both.

How are you doing today?

Hi, doing well.

How are you?

Doing well as well.

I'm terrific.

I'm really excited to be joined by the both of you who I consider extreme experts in R&B and dance music.

And to that end, I kind of want to know a little bit about how did R&B and sort of dance music in general become your metier or like what you love?

And then like, what do you love about this and your history of it?

I grew up with pop and R&B music.

It's kind of my first musical loves.

My parents grew up in New York

in the 70s and 80s, so a lot of that early stuff was played around the house. They were big on

like Michael and Janet Jackson, disco, soul, but also like a lot of good classics, like

...