Kehlani kept a relatively low profile on the music front in 2018, opting to show out on select guest spots (Cardi B's "Ring,"KYLE's "Playinwitme"). That changes in 2019 as the 23-year-old Oakland artist shares her new mixtape While We Wait.
The nine-track project, which was made "in a month with many loved ones," includes features from Ty Dolla Sign, Dom Kennedy, 6lack, and Musiq Soulchild. Listeners can count early standouts as "Nights Like This," "Too Deep," and "RPG," the latter record finding her in a place where she's ready to break things off with her significant other ("Don't you think that we're too old to play your game/And we ain't go through all of this to stay the same").
Kehlani, who is now nine months pregnant, recently described her next album as a gift to her daughter and also called it "one of the most serious projects that I've ever worked on."
"I'm telling stories I've never told, they're not even, some, from my perspective, they're from the perspective of two people that I'm about to bring out into the world, into light. Which transfers into how I interpreted their stories and then transfers ... it's basically a gift to my daughter," she told Beats 1 Radio's Zane Lowe back in January. "It's my parents' story articulated into mine, articulated into a gift for my daughter, so she knows where she comes from."
While We Wait is Kehlani's first full-length project since her gold-selling 2017 debut album SweetSexySavage, and it sounds like she has more in store this year. For now, stream While We Wait below and grab it on iTunes.
