On the latest episode of Sunday Gems, Reyna Biddy had Kehlani in the studio to tackle a bunch of topics including "Cancel Culture," the R. Kelly allegations, and her single-minded march towards motherhood. And unlike much of the commentary making the rounds nowadays, Kehlani did a fine job of presenting her opinions in an all-encompassing and balanced manner.
On the basis of "Cancel Culture" having unintended consequences, Kehlani explained that while an artist in R. Kelly's position may be scrutinized on a personal level - that in itself is what engenders a second wave of interest into the artist's music, i.e streaming totals.
"Let's be real, real, real. Nobody ends up getting cancelled," Kehlani said. "These people that we go in on—and it becomes heartbreaking sometimes—their streaming goes up, their views go up, they get more followers; they're still booking shows. It's disheartening as f**k."
And while Kehlani sees the futility in "Cancel Culture" on the basis of those negating consequences, the singer does support the underlying sentiment behind the phenomenology. "It's not even the act of the cancelling itself that I support. It's the act of if you are feeling unsafe and you are feeling unheard and someone has made you feel absolutely just low as hell, then you have every right to express your anger about that, and you have every right to set a boundary between yourself and this person," she explained.
In closing, Reyna and Kehlani spoke about XXXTentacion, again in a nuanced manner. While both women were solemnly against X's abusive track record, they did, however, find it hard to get behind all the backlash he received following his death - while also expressing their support for X's mother Cleo through thick and thin. Check out bits of the conversation in the following web player.