Kelela plays Emo’s Austin on Tuesday, September 15. She arrives on the new avatar live tour — her first extended North American run in years — and behind it sits new avatar, her third studio album, dropping July 10 on Warp Records. The three singles she’s released since April suggest a record built on the same precision that made Take Me Apart matter.
About Kelela
Kelela Mizanekristos grew up in Gaithersburg, Maryland, a second-generation Ethiopian American. She arrived in 2013 with the Cut 4 Me mixtape doing something that didn’t have a clean name yet: R&B with its skeleton built for the club, written about emotional life with more specificity than the genre usually allows. The Hallucinogen EP followed in 2015. Then Take Me Apart on Warp Records in 2017 — it entered the Billboard 200, climbed to number three on the UK R&B chart, and drew serious attention from Pitchfork, Billboard, and Variety.
Raven came in 2023, and the remix collection Rave:N followed in February 2024. The 2026 singles — “idea 1,” “linknb,” and “point blank” (produced by Oscar Scheller) — pick up that thread with something shifted at the center. She named the territory herself: “The fantasy many of us are invested in is one where we do such a good job of holding space that it starts to rub off on our partner over time.” That’s the emotional ground new avatar covers, and it’s exactly the kind of writing her catalog has earned the space for. After Austin, the tour moves to Dallas, then Houston, before heading west, then east, then to Europe in late October.
About Emo’s Austin
Emo’s Austin carries one of the city’s most durable club names. The original Emo’s ran on Red River from 1992 to 2011 before the brand relocated to a 1,700-capacity room on East Riverside Drive under Live Nation. The new space books indie, hip-hop, rock, and emerging-headliner acts — the room that sits above the Mohawk and below Stubb’s in terms of scale. It’s a fitting stop for contemporary R&B with real electronic architecture underneath it. Find it at 2015 E Riverside Dr, Austin, TX 78741. Doors at 7:00 PM.
Tickets
Tickets go on sale to the general public on June 5, 2026 at 10:00 AM local time. A Live Nation presale opens June 3. Get your tickets for Kelela at Emo’s Austin through Lonestar Concerts.
See all upcoming Austin concerts or browse the full Emo’s Austin schedule.