By Eric Budianto Thornton
The first time I heard Kaleena Zanders, it was buried inside a Chris Lake and Matroda’s remix. That thick, soulful, gospel-dipped voice riding a four-on-the-floor groove like she was born to do exactly this and nothing else. And now, with her debut album Anything Goes on the horizon and three singles already stacking up, the rest of the world is catching up fast.
Zanders is a vocalist, songwriter, DJ, and producer all at once, one of those rare artists where the hyphenates actually mean something. Her sound lives at the intersection of soul, disco, and house music: sun-soaked, spirit-lifting, the kind of thing that makes a festival crowd feel like a congregation. That’s not an accident. She grew up following in her grandmother’s footsteps, an incredible choir leader, singer, and pianist, and that lineage seeps into everything she touches.
The rollout for Anything Goes, out this spring on Helix Records, has been a masterclass in building momentum. February brought “Can You Imagine” with Grammy-nominated British vocalist Bipolar Sunshine, the man behind DJ Snake’s inescapable “Middle“, and it’s exactly as good as that collaboration sounds on paper. Zanders has said she’s been a fan of Bipolar Sunshine since 2016, loving how he made dance music feel “a little more vulnerable and intimate,” and you can feel that admiration in every bar. The track is groovy and warm, built for golden-hour festival moments, with production assist from Ryan of Party Pupils and Andy of Koastle giving it just the right amount of texture and bounce.
March brought the second single, “Who We Are” with London-based singer-songwriter Hayley May, a natural pairing of two powerhouse voices who first bonded over dinner in London and ended up creating something that sounds almost too easy, which is usually the mark of a genuine connection. “It’s honestly so rare and beautiful to find another powerful vocalist in dance music,” Zanders has said, and that rarity shines through in the way their voices lock together.
And now, today the third single, “Stronger Than Machines,” lands. Co-written with her friend Vanessa years ago, and finished with producer Daniel Allan and longtime collaborator No Bills, the track feels prescient: a defiant, feel-good anthem about human resilience in the age of AI, complete with child-like gang vocals that Zanders says she wanted to sound like “the future humans who will have to make sure the future of humanity doesn’t get completely erased.” That kind of thinking, using pop instincts to wrap something genuinely serious, is exactly what separates Zanders from the field.
The live resume backs all of this up. She shared a stage at Pier 80 with Diplo, Calvin Harris, and Sonny Fodera for a Super Bowl weekend show. She’s done three Coachella sets. She’s toured with GRiZ. Her #1 radio single “V I B R A T I O N” and her Billboard-recognized collaboration “Carry Us” with LP Giobbi have already made her a tastemaker favorite. The Anything Goes Tour kicks off April 23rd in New York, hitting Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, and landing in LA at The Spotlight on May 28 before festival season takes over — Electric Forest, Beyond Wonderland at The Gorge, and FVDED In The Park all locked in.
The voice was always there. The moment is now.
Kaleena Zanders — Anything Goes Tour & Upcoming Dates Tickets and info at Follow on Spotify | Instagram | Youtube
- Apr 23 — New York, NY — Public Records
- Apr 25 — Toronto, ON — The Drake
- May 1 — San Diego, CA — EQ Nightclub
- May 2 — San Francisco, CA — Monarch
- May 8 — Chicago, IL — Sound Bar
- May 9 — Denver, CO — Larimer Lounge
- May 28 — Los Angeles, CA — The Spotlight
- Jun 25 — Montague, MI — Electric Forest
- Jun 27 — Quincy, WA — Beyond Wonderland at The Gorge
- Jul 3 — Surrey, BC — FVDED In The Park