Kiesza

About

The artist

Kiesza is the stage name of Kiesa Rae Ellestad, a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, dancer, and choreographer based in Toronto, Ontario. Raised in Calgary, she served in the Royal Canadian Navy, trained in ballet, and studied music before establishing the Kiesza project. Her international breakthrough arrived in 2014 with Hideaway, a house single paired with a one-take dance video filmed on the streets of Brooklyn. The song entered the United Kingdom's Official Singles Chart at number one and remained on the chart for forty-one weeks. Sound of a Woman followed later that year through 4th & Broadway and Island Records, combining house, dance-pop, R&B, and soul. At the 2015 JUNO Awards, Kiesza won Breakthrough Artist of the Year and Video of the Year for Hideaway. She also developed an extensive songwriting and collaboration practice, working with artists including Duran Duran, Skrillex and Diplo's Jack Ü, Joey Bada$$, deadmau5, Peaches, Gorgon City, and Pitbull. A serious Toronto car crash in 2017 caused a brain injury and interrupted her career. After a long rehabilitation, she returned as an independent artist with Crave in 2020 and a deluxe edition in 2021 through her own Zebra Spirit Tribe imprint. Her subsequent releases brought movement, humour, vulnerability, and club music together. Dancing and Crying: Vol. 1 arrived in 2024, Vol. 2 followed in 2025 with songs including So Erotic and Stays in Bed, and the seven-track Vol. 3 completed the sequence in May 2026. The exact Spotify identity currently contains eighty-four distinct primary album and single containers from July 2014 through May 2026. MusicList preserves the five provider-classified album containers, reclassifies nine four-to-six-track single containers as EPs, and retains seventy one-to-three-track containers as singles, including featured records and remix editions. Representative releases include Sound of a Woman, Crave, the three Dancing and Crying volumes, and Hideaway. Kiesza's official site is active with the 2026 release and tour, and current official DSP profiles carry Dancing and Crying: Vol. 3. Her current Toronto base is confirmed directly in a 2025 interview in which she said she had moved back to Canada after previously being based in New York. A separate Canadian Press interview conducted in Toronto the same year documents her recovery, current creative direction, and Vol. 2. Spotify media is displayed remotely with provider attribution and a monogram fallback.