Okayehlani has one thing to declare. “I’m excited for this mustache!” she exclaims as she waltzes into StyleCaster’s Los Angeles studio. Whether or not she’s toying with hypermasculinity or hyperfemininity, her play on gender expression by no means seems like a attain. “There are actually humorous photos of me in highschool with pretend mustaches on,” she provides over video chat three weeks later, lounging on her sofa post-workout. “Perhaps mustaches are simply my jam.”
Our shoot occurred a few days earlier than the discharge of Crash, her fourth album and her first LP in two years. That very same week, Kehlani flew throughout the U.S. and Europe to satisfy hundreds of followers—a few of whom waited greater than 12 hours to inform Kehlani how a lot she meant to them. In Oakland (Kehlani’s hometown), one fan requested the singer to signal 9 vinyl data again to again. In Amsterdam, a pair launched Kehlani to their daughter who they’d named after her.
Authenticity attracts, and Kehlani is an open ebook. Her 10-year repertoire is filled with weak hits about acquainted emotions like love and heartbreak, and each track comes with a tinge of textbook R&B sexiness and longing. Since her early mixtapes, Kehlani’s music has ranged from sucker-punched solo singles like “Jealous” to chart-topping collabs with artists like Zayn Malik, Ty Dolla $ign, Justin Bieber, and Hayley Kiyoko.
Each single individual needed to be radically delusional about one thing to ensure that it to come back to fruition and exist on this world.
She’s cultivated a timeless and devoted viewers—and her 2017 love track “Honey” has turn into a favourite marriage ceremony first dance track for a lot of of her lesbian followers. Extra just lately, she’s rallied followers to lift over $500,000 for Palestinian, Sudanese, and Congolese households by promoting merch impressed by her “Subsequent 2 U” music video, which was crammed with Palestinian flags and keffiyeh-stitched outfits.
Group has performed a key function in Kehlani’s life since she was a toddler rising up in Oakland. There’s additionally no boundary between her offline and on-line persona—she posts what she needs when she needs. “I simply don’t care,” she says. Her Instagram tales are a collage of her shut associates and mutual assist infographics, she updates her followers when she surfs at Topanga Seashore, and he or she dishes out each side of her astrological chart on Instagram Dwell.
For any artist, an album launch resembles a crescendo—weeks of intense advertising, events, meet-and-greets, and lengthy press days. However Kehlani stays unbothered. She’s been doing this routine for 4 albums and three mixtapes, and to her, the lead-up to an album launch is an “affirming expertise,” reasonably than unmitigated insanity. “I’m so many initiatives deep that it doesn’t really feel like there’s this huge life change after I drop a undertaking anymore,” she says.
After releasing Crash, Kehlani’s precedence was spending time in nature and getting recentered. A visit as much as Oregon’s pure forests along with her finest associates and 5-year-old daughter, Adeya, was simply what she wanted. “No person gave a fuck about me on the street journey,” Kehlani says. “Some folks acknowledged me after we went to a waterfall, however the entire street journey was refreshing, and it felt nice to be a human in any case that.” When she received again, she began making new music once more. “At this level, it’s like a loop,” she says.
It is smart to have a bit of retreat, since Crash is a unending celebration. The opening observe, “GrooveTheory,” is a sultry invitation right into a decadent world of acquainted membership beats. The lead single, “After Hours,” options the acquainted drums from 2004’s “Transfer Ya Physique” by Nina Sky—a track that instantly makes you need to put your arms in your knees and shake it. “I actually needed my track to be a banger,” she says. “When ‘After Hours’ drops within the membership, everyone dances.”
Nostalgia overflows, too. “What I Need,” which samples the traditional 1999 track “What a Lady Desires” by Christina Aguilera, transports you straight again to the nineties. The track virtually received reduce from the album as a result of one other pattern couldn’t get cleared—however Xtina got here to the rescue. “Final minute, we had been like, ‘Let’s change the pattern to Christina Aguilera,’ which was good,” Kehlani says. “She’s the shit. She’s tremendous sort and he or she’s. She was like, ‘I’m down,’ immediately.”
I already beat my recreation and I’ve finished so many issues that little me couldn’t even fathom. I’ve finished numerous stuff that’s sufficient for me. No matter comes after, this has simply been a blessing.
Pop icons aren’t the one individuals who helped Kehlani with the album. She highlighted “Sucia,” that includes Jill Scott and Younger Miko, because the “crossover of the century.” Collaboration additionally extends to her household—“Deep” options vocals from Adeya, who impressively recorded the track in a single take. “She’s a bit of shy,” Kehlani says. “However when she noticed the response after we performed it again, everyone was like, ‘Oh my gosh, such as you did it.’ She couldn’t consider it, and it was cool to see her being actually happy with herself.”
Kehlani says she owes all of the songs on their album to her Saturn return—a turbulent astrological interval throughout your late twenties that shakes you into the individual you’re speculated to be. It’s numerous headwork, particularly on the crossroads of being 29, but it surely’s a serious and useful turning level.
“I knew what I needed life to be, however I’ve been residing so inauthentically,” she says. “I don’t need to play this recreation like that. I already beat my recreation, and I’ve finished so many issues that little me couldn’t even fathom.” Now, she’s assured that she received’t be caught in any type of field or cage that exists. “I’ve finished numerous stuff that’s sufficient for me,” she says. “No matter comes after, this has simply been a blessing.”
After years within the music trade, Kehlani’s Saturn return helped her refocus on what’s essential—like her artwork and sense of self. “Life is a lot larger than the rat race,” she says, including that her Saturn return “actually introduced me again down into my physique.”
Kehlani considers her astrological chart ruler, Pisces moon, as the explanation she’s “radically delusional”—a time period her buddy Akiea coined. It’s true that being profitable requires an almost-delusional degree of self-belief. And in Kehlani’s case, it’s clearly labored out. “Every part we all know on this life was dreamed up,” she says. “Each single individual needed to be radically delusional about one thing to ensure that it to come back to fruition and exist on this world.”
With its June launch date, Crash is yet one more contribution to this summer time’s sexy lesbian musical renaissance. Kehlani joins quite a few artists—like Chappell Roan, Reneé Rapp, and Towa Hen—whose poppy sapphic coochie-eating anthems have gone mainstream.
The phenomenon has prompted Kehlani to look again on her personal adolescence—and the life-changing expertise of seeing Syd, a Black lesbian singer, for the primary time in highschool. Her present rotation is crammed with equally chill influences—sapphic artists, like Sasha Keable, and Black masc lesbian singers, like Amari Noelle, Kaash Paige, Cody Kane, Ambré, and kwn.
“It’s dope to see folks now who’re in that fluidity and other people of that expression have the ability to exist and make music and all the pieces be celebrated,” she says. “Youthful me would most likely have come to phrases extra rapidly with my non-binary id and the way I current.”
That invitation to discover is strictly what Kehlani brings to her personal viewers. She recounts occasions when followers approached her on tour to inform her how her music received them via transitioning or helped them discover their gender id.
Tales like these breathe life into her narrative. With a tour freshly introduced for the autumn—after a short stint in Las Vegas in August—Kehlani’s excited to hit the street once more. And she or he’s letting her radically delusional thoughts run wild. She needs to stage dive along with her finest buddy to “Deep.” She needs to carry out to one of the best of her potential—and, after all, as her truest self.
“I’m going to exist loudly,” she says. “And if it rocks, it rocks.”
Photographer: Michael Buckner
Artistic Route: Sasha Purdy
Artistic Assistant: Aamina Inayat Khan
Manufacturing Assistant: Roya Backlund
Stylist: Briana Andalore
Make-up: Troye Antonio
Hair: Dharius Thomas with Manufacturing unit Downtown
Styling Assistant: Claudia Murphy
