The Oakland R&B singer’s latest project is a shining example of both her emotional intelligence and her balmy, lucid songwriting. It’s cliché but true; Kehlani’s voice sounds like a ray of sunshine. It is warm, radiant, and unyielding. She emerged sounding this way on her breakout, Grammy-nominated 2015 mixtape You Should Be Here (released four days after her 20th birthday), fully-formed not only as a vocalist but also as a songwriter. On You Should Be Here and her 2017 debut album SweetSexySavage, Kehlani parsed the emotional currents running through her turbulent childhood, her suicide attempt, and ongoing relationships to produce clear-eyed songs about love, sex, angst, and wellness; her luminous voice suffusing her every word with a profound sense of hope.
On her new mixtape While We Wait, Kehlani doesn’t tinker with her proven formula. Rather, she delivers a tightly written, fundamentally sound nine-track project that nevertheless feels expansive in its portrayal and navigation of modern relationships. The title refers both to her upcoming album and the imminent birth of her daughter, who is due in March; its nine songs are perhaps a nod to the nine months of pregnancy. WWW serves as testimony to the simple fact that relationships require work; they must be maintained and nurtured, and when they fail, the emotional labor often lasts well past the postmortem. With the wisdom of a woman twice her age, Kehlani inhabits and ruminates in the many folds of her various relationships—their ever-shifting boundaries and expectations and persistent need for communication.
| A1 | Footsteps |
| A2 | Too Deep |
| A3 | Nunya |
| A4 | Morning Glory |
| A5 | Feels |
| B1 | Nights Like This |
| B2 | Rpg |
| B3 | Butterfly |
| B4 | Love Language |
