Kehlani has something to declare. “I’m excited for this mustache!” she exclaims as she waltzes into StyleCaster’s Los Angeles studio. Whether she’s toying with hypermasculinity or hyperfemininity, her play on gender expression never feels like a reach. “There are really funny pictures of me in high school with fake mustaches on,” she adds over video chat three weeks later, lounging on her couch post-workout. “Maybe mustaches are just my jam.”
Our shoot took place a couple of days before the release of Crash, her fourth album and her first LP in two years. That same week, Kehlani flew across the U.S. and Europe to meet thousands of fans—some of whom waited more than 12 hours to tell Kehlani how much she meant to them. In Oakland (Kehlani’s hometown), one fan asked the singer to sign nine vinyl records back to back. In Amsterdam, a couple introduced Kehlani to their daughter who they’d named after her.
Authenticity attracts, and Kehlani is an open book. Her 10-year repertoire is full of vulnerable hits about familiar feelings like love and heartbreak, and every song 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.
Every single person had to be radically delusional about something in order for it to come to fruition and exist in this world.
She’s cultivated a timeless and devoted audience—and her 2017 love song “Honey” has become a favorite wedding first dance song for many of her lesbian fans. More recently, she’s rallied fans to raise over $500,000 for Palestinian, Sudanese, and Congolese families by selling merch inspired by her “Next 2 U” music video, which was filled with Palestinian flags and keffiyeh-stitched outfits.
Community has played a key role in Kehlani’s life since she was a child growing up in Oakland. There’s also no boundary between her offline and online personality—she posts what she wants when she wants. “I just don’t care,” she says. Her Instagram stories are a collage of her close friends and mutual aid infographics, she updates her fans when she surfs at Topanga Beach, and she dishes out every aspect of her astrological chart on Instagram Live.
For any artist, an album release resembles a crescendo—weeks of intense marketing, parties, meet-and-greets, and long press days. But Kehlani remains unbothered. She’s been doing this routine for four albums and three mixtapes, and to her, the lead-up to an album release is an “affirming experience,” rather than unmitigated madness. “I’m so many projects deep that it doesn’t feel like there’s this massive life switch when I drop a project anymore,” she says.
After releasing Crash, Kehlani’s priority was spending time in nature and getting recentered. A trip up to Oregon’s natural forests with her best friends and 5-year-old daughter, Adeya, was just what she needed. “Nobody gave a fuck about me on the road trip,” Kehlani says. “Some people recognized me when we went to a waterfall, but the whole road trip was refreshing, and it felt great to be a human after all that.” When she got back, she started making new music again. “At this point, it’s like a loop,” she says.
It makes sense to have a little retreat, since Crash is a never-ending party. The opening track, “GrooveTheory,” is a sultry invitation into a decadent world of familiar club beats. The lead single, “After Hours,” features the familiar drums from 2004’s “Move Ya Body” by Nina Sky—a song that immediately makes you want to put your hands on your knees and shake it. “I really wanted my song to be a banger,” she says. “When ‘After Hours’ drops in the club, everybody dances.”
Nostalgia overflows, too. “What I Want,” which samples the classic 1999 song “What a Girl Wants” by Christina Aguilera, transports you straight back to the nineties. The song almost got cut from the album because another sample couldn’t get cleared—but Xtina came to the rescue. “Last minute, we were like, ‘Let’s change the sample to Christina Aguilera,’ which was perfect,” Kehlani says. “She’s the shit. She’s super kind and she’s. She was like, ‘I’m down,’ instantly.”
I already beat my game and I’ve done so many things that little me couldn’t even fathom. I’ve done a lot of stuff that’s enough for me. Whatever comes after, this has just been a blessing.
Pop icons aren’t the only people who helped Kehlani with the album. She highlighted “Sucia,” featuring Jill Scott and Young Miko, as the “crossover of the century.” Collaboration also extends to her family—“Deep” features vocals from Adeya, who impressively recorded the song in one take. “She’s a little shy,” Kehlani says. “But when she saw the reaction when we played it back, everybody was like, ‘Oh my gosh, like you did it.’ She couldn’t believe it, and it was cool to see her being really proud of herself.”
Kehlani says she owes all the songs on their album to her Saturn return—a turbulent astrological period during your late twenties that shakes you into the person you’re supposed to be. It’s a lot of headwork, especially at the crossroads of being 29, but it’s a major and valuable turning point.
“I knew what I wanted life to be, but I’ve been living so inauthentically,” she says. “I don’t want to play this game like that. I already beat my game, and I’ve done so many things that little me couldn’t even fathom.” Now, she’s confident that she won’t be stuck in any kind of box or cage that exists. “I’ve done a lot of stuff that’s enough for me,” she says. “Whatever comes after, this has just been a blessing.”
After years in the music industry, Kehlani’s Saturn return helped her refocus on what’s important—like her art and sense of self. “Life is so much bigger than the rat race,” she says, adding that her Saturn return “really brought me back down into my body.”
Kehlani considers her astrological chart ruler, Pisces moon, as the reason she’s “radically delusional”—a term her friend Akiea coined. It’s true that being successful requires an almost-delusional level of self-belief. And in Kehlani’s case, it’s clearly worked out. “Everything we know in this life was dreamed up,” she says. “Every single person had to be radically delusional about something in order for it to come to fruition and exist in this world.”
With its June release date, Crash is yet another contribution to this summer’s horny lesbian musical renaissance. Kehlani joins a number of artists—like Chappell Roan, Reneé Rapp, and Towa Bird—whose poppy sapphic coochie-eating anthems have gone mainstream.
The phenomenon has prompted Kehlani to look back on her own adolescence—and the life-changing experience of seeing Syd, a Black lesbian singer, for the first time in high school. Her current rotation is filled with similarly 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 people now who are in that fluidity and people of that expression be able to exist and make music and everything be celebrated,” she says. “Younger me would probably have come to terms more quickly with my non-binary identity and how I present.”
That invitation to explore is exactly what Kehlani brings to her own audience. She recounts times when fans approached her on tour to tell her how her music got them through transitioning or helped them explore their gender identity.
Stories like these breathe life into her narrative. With a tour freshly announced for the fall—after a brief stint in Las Vegas in August—Kehlani’s excited to hit the road again. And she’s letting her radically delusional mind run wild. She wants to stage dive with her best friend to “Deep.” She wants to perform to the best of her ability—and, of course, as her truest self.
“I’m going to exist loudly,” she says. “And if it rocks, it rocks.”
Photographer: Michael Buckner
Creative Direction: Sasha Purdy
Creative Assistant: Aamina Inayat Khan
Production Assistant: Roya Backlund
Stylist: Briana Andalore
Makeup: Troye Antonio
Hair: Dharius Thomas with Factory Downtown
Styling Assistant: Claudia Murphy
