Introduced to most of us via her dope Cloud 19 tape last summer, Bay Area native Kehlani has kept her grind strong since then, now gearing up to release a follow-up on April 28th. Before we get You Should Be Here, we're out to preach to the unconverted and convince you that Kehlani deserves to be on your iPod.
Starting her career as a member of the band Poplyfe, Kehlani (now 19) appeared on the show "America's Got Talent" in 2011, but later moved past the cover band's aspirations and began working on her own. Since then, she's moved more towards the modern R&B side of things, and seen her influence and fanbase expand as a result of her highly personal songwriting and slick production choices.
If you still need convincing, read on and watch Kehlani's "On The Come Up" segment below:
No autotune
In the wake of T-Pain and The-Dream's halcyon days of the mid-2000s, pitch correction technology has become inextricably linked to rap and R&B, especially the more pop-minded strains of each genre. While we love our robotic warblers like Ty Dolla $ign, Future and lord Yeezus, it gets a bit tiring to hear the effect deployed every time someone starts being melodic. Clearly skilled enough to not need it, and confident enough to go against the prevailing current, Kehlani rarely (if ever) seems to doctor her voice in her music, which is a breath of fresh air.
On tracks like the recently-released "How That Taste," her vocals are obviously pretty enough to sit on their own, but the lack of digitized correction humanizes her somewhat raspy, raw voice. It's these quirks, also apparent when she speaks, that ground Kehlani into sounding like the girl next door rather than an unattainable superstar. We're with it.
Jahaan Sweet is a beast
How many artists have a go-to producer who went to Juilliard? Sweet is a pianist, producer and songwriter who's currently enrolled in the prestigious, NYC-located college (he's set to graduate this summer), and his work for Kehlani is only improving as time goes on. He did two tracks on Cloud 19, including "Get Away," which we'll talk about in depth later, and since then, has produced three of the four tracks we've heard so far from You Should Be Here.
Of these, the BJ The Chicago Kid-assisted "Down For You" might be the best example of Jahaan's talent. On it, he blends guitar, piano, synth and modern-skewing percussion into a heavenly composition, at once recalling Alicia Keys' "Unbreakable," Eve's "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" and Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothing." He's versatile, classically trained and hip-- what more could you ask for?
Her moves
Dancing has gotten less popular in R&B as of late, with mega-tours featuring backup dancers seeming more and more like a relic from Usher's Confessions era, but no one told Kehlani. She got her start dancing, and hasn't stopped, incorporating choreographed routines into many of her videos. The best of these is the clip for Cloud 19 cut, "FWU," in which Kehlani leads a boys vs. girls dane-off.
Although dancing ability isn't necessarily a factor in deciding whether or not to listen to an artist, it's definitely another unique thing Kehlani has going for her.
Relatable, smart lyrics
While on tour in Canada recently, Kehlani bought her first bottle at a club, but you won't hear her singing about it anytime soon. "I'm not a big club person," she said in that same interview, and it comes through in her music. As she's still a teenager, most of her songs are understandably about relationships and young love, but she writes about it in ways that are unique, and still accessible to nearly anyone.
She has a knack for describing clichés in fresh terms; on "Get Away," she starts with a commonplace saying, but then adds vivid detail to highlight her point: "Every man wants a queen, Jada in her prime, 1990s fine." Elsewhere, she uses clever metaphors for entire songs, namely on "1st Position," where she uses a dancing term to describe one of her first romantic same-sex encounters.
Drake's "Legend" jacked her swag
Ok really, it's Ginuwine whose swag was jacked on both "Legend" and Kehlani's "Get Away," but when you learn that the source material, "So Anxious," had only been sampled once prior to last year, it seems like more than just a coincidence that it's ended up on two big songs in the past 9 months or so. The beginnings of "Get Away" and "Legend" are almost identical, and though they go on to deviate from one another, you've gotta wonder if Drake and PARTYNEXTDOOR heard the former before making the latter.
Whatever the case, releasing a similar-sounding song months before the dude who's most in-control of what's currently hot in hip hop has to count for something.