Nearly a decade after releasing her debut “SweetSexySavage,” Kehlani has finally arrived at the self-titled album. An eponymous project this deep into a career is no small proclamation — it’s traditionally a one-time event that’s meant to suggest a body of work is so emblematic that it speaks for itself, or it reflects the artist in such a way that it summarizes their creativity in the most complete way possible.
That feels appropriate for Kehlani, whose 2024 album “Crash” was perhaps the most unfocused she has been on a record, grabbing across genre lines for a project whose broad scope created imbalance. “Kehlani,” her fifth studio album, course-corrects the spaghetti-against-the-wall approach of “Crash” by centering the sound in one specific arena: millennium R&B at the intersection of pop.
The project is a love letter to her influences, from the litany of era-specific guest appearances — Lil Wayne, Usher, Brandy, T-Pain, Lil Jon — to the instrumentation and references permeating through the music, like the Pharcyde flip on “No Such Thing” with Clipse (a very rare feature, it should be noted) and the unmistakable bass thumps of Busta Rhymes’ “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See” on “Back and Forth” featuring Missy Elliott. (In case you were wondering, yes, there’s an Aaliyah reference on there, too.) If the self-titled is a way to translate your artistic intention into sound, Kehlani shows that she’s at her best when she embraces the building blocks that made her, subsuming herself in the aesthetic and conventions of her influences while adapting them into one of her most powerful mission statements to date.
Nostalgia has become a de facto crutch for many contemporary artists looking for a genre to carry an era, yet Kehlani’s deep dive feels as much an appreciation as it is a retrofitting. Kehlani is clearly a student of the game, and here, the devil is in the details. If “Anotha Luva” featuring Lil Wayne recalls the summer breeze of Amerie’s “Why Don’t We Fall in Love,” it’s because she managed to track down Rich Harrison, the song’s producer, to deliver an instrumental in its lineage. “Oooh” touts a writing credit from Keri Hilson because the song was originally a demo from one of Hilson’s late ’00s albums. Lead single “Folded” sounds like a country cousin of Faith Evans’ “I Love You.” Closing ballad “Unlearn” is a spot-on sequel to JoJo’s “Never Say Goodbye,” right down to the horn blasts at the end of the chorus. (No surprise there, as songwriter Antonio Dixon worked on both songs, decades apart.)
But what keeps “Kehlani” from slipping into pastiche is the artist herself, who radiates a confidence and frankness that only comes with age. At 31, Kehlani has experienced the grip of love and its occasional demise, several times in the public eye, yet here she frames the rollercoaster of romance with clarity and intent. You can picture her lying awake at night, pining for a love long gone, on “I Need You,” a traditional R&B ballad featuring Brandy and produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. A few songs later, she’s right back where she started, “laying here next to you,” even though she didn’t intend to on the feel-good “Shoulda Never” featuring Usher. Inevitably, she finds stasis in being on her own with “Cruise Control,” a celebration of freeing yourself from the tumult of a relationship — the type of growth that takes real experience to spark.
At the core of “Kehlani,” like all of her projects, is her vocal talent, which she wields to great effect across this album. Part of Kehlani’s charm is the effortlessness of her voice, which is so powerful and distinctive that it helps maintain momentum even when a song is a little too on the nose (the fingersnapped “Call Me Back” featuring T-Pain and Lil Jon). It’s what helped push “Folded” into mainstream ubiquity in an era where the R&B crossover hit faces diminishing returns, a testament to how she’s refined her performance over time.
To that effect, the timing couldn’t be better for the self-titled album. Kehlani is at the peak of her artistic powers — she just took home her first pair of Grammys for “Folded” in February — and she says as much on the album’s intro: “You’re about to hear a heart that’s been stretched, healed and reborn, a voice stepping into its truth with no fear, no filter and no apologies.” Knowing who you are can be a lifelong struggle, yet Kehlani seems to have it finally figured out.
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