Kaleena Zanders dreamed of being the lead singer in a rock band. That’s until a part time job at a Trader Joe’s on Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles became the catalyst for a career in dance music.
“My friend there was like, ‘Yo, I have a friend who’s a DJ and he’s looking for a vocalist,’” Zanders recalls. “‘Do you ever do dance music?’”
She did not. Born in San Jose, Calif., Zanders had been a musical theater kid and basketball player who’d grown up playing in rock bands. A fan of Primus, Korn, Insane Clown Posse and Rage Against the Machine, as a teenager Zanders “wanted to be like, Lenny Kravitz.” As such, in college she and some friends formed a band called Molder’s Lounge (named after the lounge in their dorm) that gained traction in the Bay Area and eventually traveled south for a gig at The Roxy in L.A.
“We opened for some metal band, and it was a packed show,” says Zanders, who was the group’s vocalist, and at the time sported a red mohawk. “They had big hair and it was like, Hot Topic to the max. It was nuts. After I was like, ‘You guys, we have to move to L.A.’”
Zanders packed up her things and made the move, but the band dissolved around her as life took everyone in different directions. Still wanting to pursue music, she enrolled in the city’s Musicians Institute, starting in the vocal program. But school was expensive and she wasn’t convinced she needed a formal education to be a singer, so she quit. She then took some time off from music to become a yoga instructor, supplementing her income by working at Trader Joe’s, where her career as a dance artist began amid the aisles.
The coworker who’d asked if she did dance music was friends with the producer SNBRN, who invited Zanders to his downtown L.A. apartment to record vocals for a song. The track they made became the 2015 collaboration “California,” which quickly racked up tens of thousands of streams, then got another boost when it was remixed by Chris Lake and Matroda.
“When I was feeling broken about music and thinking I was going quit, that happened,” Zanders says while speaking to Billboard at a bustling Hollywood cafe. “In 2015 that became the biggest song, and I was like, ‘Wow, okay. This is cool. This is new.’”
New in so many ways. Zanders was at this point mostly unfamiliar with the dance scene in which she was suddenly in high demand. “At first it was overwhelming, because suddenly there were all these DJs hitting me up to work, but I didn’t know them,” she says. “Even the big ones, I had no clue who they were.” She had little experience writing dance toplines and was also finding that the artists approaching her to collab wanted “the belty, soulful, churchy” kind of vocals she wasn’t entirely comfortable delivering.
“Sometimes women with my voice who are Black… how they were treated at that time, if I had known, there’s no way I would have done it,” she says. Feeling overwhelmed by the number of requests she was getting and also disrespected by the way some of these producers were approaching her “I just put up a wall to everyone who was was hitting me up.”
Simultaneously, however, Zanders was finding that she enjoyed the dance world. SNBRN took her out to perform with him at a few festivals, and she attended her first EDC Las Vegas in 2016. “I started to understand more,” she says, “and I loved the community. I wasn’t used to people just being nice to each other and sharing space and enjoying music together, celebrating it, dressing up. I was like, ‘This is amazing.’”
Getting more comfortable in dance, she did a few more collabs, but ultimately still felt worn out by “not getting the right royalties or splits and having to negotiate and fight for those things. That started taking a toll on me. I think the [attitude] among some DJs can be like ‘Let’s just find some vocals,’ very casual. I’m just like, ‘Okay, but I’m a whole human.’”
The final straw came when an artist she’d done a session with released a track with her vocals on it, giving her a credit but no money. “I was outraged,” she says, “but at that point I was already hitting a wall with it and feeling on edge in general. All these vocalists often make the tracks and make them big, and, at least at that time, weren’t able to have careers the same way DJs do.”
The pandemic then hit, and during it a new version of Zanders formed. “I’m actually really thankful for that reset,” she says, “because it made me look at myself and be like, ‘Hey, I think I have the power to do this on my own.’”
Why Kaleena Zanders Is an Up-and-Coming Dance Artist
During the pandemic, Zanders taught herself to DJ, working out a performance style during which she both played behind the decks and sang elements of the songs she’d guested on.
The setup worked, with Zanders booking her her first big solo gig when she opened for Australian sister duo Nervo at Avalon in Los Angeles in early 2022. Her second set happened at EDC Las Vegas 2022, where she played as part of a Femme House art car takeover alongside artists including Femme House co-founder LP Giobbi and scene leader Sam Divine.
“I had just started DJing for s–ts and giggles,” she says, “And then I was like, ‘Oh, I’m playing real shows.’”
Amid these shows, she was also finding her people. Giobbi became a regular collaborator, with the pair working together on the 2021 track “Carry Us.” She eventually signed with The Team (formerly Wasserman Music) and locked in with her manager Travis Alexander, who she started working during the pandemic and who, like Zanders, comes from a rock background. She found a groove playing bass house music in the the tradition of her friend AC Slater and his revered Night Bass parties, eventually finding that “Something that had been frustrating had turned into something really empowering.” In 2025, she continued expanding her world while performing with Griz during his comeback show at Seven Stars festival in Virginia, saying she was “reborn” in the experience given how open and loving she found the bass scene to be.
Now, Zanders is on the verge of releasing her debut album Anything Goes, coming May 15 on Helix Records. Featuring collaborations with Bi-Polar Sunshine, Shift K3Y and Hayley May, the seven-track project is both confessional and catchy, with Zanders delivering lyrics about her tendency to overthink and how brighter days are coming over soulful, buoyant productions. It comes after a headlining tour that launched yesterday (April 23) at Public Records in New York and continues this month and next with dates across North America in Toronto, Chicago, San Diego, Chicago and beyond.
“I’m just thankful for the clarity of this year,” she says, “and that I’m doing this album so that I can tour.”
Best Songs to Start With
Released in February, “Can You Imagine” is the lead single from Zanders’ debut Anything Goes.
“Nobody Else” was released in December of 2025, two months after Griz and Zanders performed together at Seven Stars festival.
Zanders’ powerhouse vocals are on full display on “Carry Us,” her 2021 house collaboration with LP Giobbi.
Release this week, “Stronger Than Machines” is the latest single from Anything Goes.
What’s Next for Zanders
Zanders has clocked several recent high-profile shows, playing on a bill with Diplo and Calvin Harris in San Francisco over Super Bowl weekend in February and performing at EDC Mexico later that month. Beyond her current headlining tour, Zanders’ summer and fall schedule includes festival performances at Wisconsin’s Force Fields Festival, Michigan’s Electric Forest, Beyond Wonderland at The Gorge in Washington and Seven Stars Music Festival in Virginia.
