Kehlani: Folded, Unfolded, Becoming

It was Halloween 2025 when R&B artist Kehlani caught up with Inked Magazine. She was leaving parent-teacher conferences with her daughter Adeya, anticipating the holiday hijinks ahead. “She is Wednesday. I am Morticia. We are about to get it popping,” she said.

At the time, she was just weeks away from being honored by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers at the Women Behind the Music event, and from earning two Grammy nominations for Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance for her hit single “Folded.”

“Folded” has become a movement of sorts, unfolding into six remixes by six vocal celebrity heavyweights: JoJo, Ne-Yo, Brandy, Toni Braxton, Mario, and Tank.

“This happened completely naturally — I didn’t do any of this,” Kehlani insisted. While she initiated conversations with JoJo and Ne-Yo, the remaining four came in through an unexpected domino effect: Brandy hears it, wants to sing it. Braxton gets wind of it and wants it as soon as she recovers from an illness. Suddenly, the others wanted in on it, too.

Fans were calling for a package deal: all six songs on one platform. And so, the “Homage Pack” was born. “It was just freaking natural, dude. Like, I don’t know, it’s been the craziest thing ever,” she said. And still, the interest keeps coming. “Maybe ‘Folded’ never ends. Maybe the clothes never actually get folded,” she said jokingly.

Kehlani released her single “Out the Window” in early November, conjuring flashbacks of ‘90s R&B, and giving fans vibes of Aaliyah, Janet Jackson, and Braxton, to name a few. The music video surged to more than a million views in one month on YouTube Charts and has held steady.

And 2026 promises another swell: her fifth studio album, which the artist said is “almost finished.” And while there were few clues about the release date, online in-studio photos of Kehlani and James Fauntleroy suggest a powerful collaboration.

“I have way more collaborations than I’ve probably ever had, and they’re all people that I really, really respect,” Kehlani said of the upcoming album. “And I think the coolest thing about it is, there’s no features that feel like, ‘Oh, a label threw this together,’ or ‘Two people were popping right now, so we just threw it together.’ It was all super organic; everybody’s just loving the music that’s being made. I have people that I adore and look up to on this, so I’m really excited about it.”

Kehlani has built her life and career on instinct and evolution, characteristics that have both helped and hindered her. To understand the woman she is today, it’s important to know where she came from.

“One Hell of a Story”

Kehlani started making music around 2009, but her first major foray on the big stage was in 2011, when the 14 year old and her pop cover band PopLyfe performed on “America’s Got Talent,” making it to the top four before being eliminated. The band disbanded soon afterward, and Kehlani began her venture as a solo artist.

“I just started dropping music on the internet and people started, you know, rocking with it,” she told Hot 97’s Peter Rosenberg in 2015. “I think people just liked it because it was natural and it didn’t feel forced.”

Her breakout song was “ANTISUMMERLUV,” a heartfelt homage to summer romance that goes nowhere. “It was just a good R&B song,” she told Rosenberg. “I think that really just kind of set things on fire.”

That flame sparked her first major mixtape release in 2014, “Cloud 19,” followed by “You Should Be Here” in 2015, which earned a Grammy nomination under the Best Urban Contemporary Album category, the young performer’s first nod by the Recording Academy. Her first studio album, “SweetSexySavage,” was fueling her solo music career, and as she worked on her next album, COVID-19 swept the globe.

Quarantine had the potential to put her new album on the back burner indefinitely, but Kehlani took charge instead. She became her own makeup artist, hairstylist, and wardrobe stylist, working alongside her videographer, Bri Alysse, who was sheltering in place with her.

The duo created music videos, such as “Everybody Business” and “Toxic,” and shot the album’s cover art: Kehlani peeking over her backyard wall, watering hose in hand. On the back cover, the scene flips to the artist’s face, with an ominous scene of the world crumbling in the background. This would be her second studio album, “It Was Good Until It Wasn’t,” a 15-song compilation of deep, personal jams of tangled emotions and clarity. “It tells the story of the album, of a romantic situation I was in, with everything behind me being really crazy, and what’s in front of me being really crazy too,” Kehlani shared with Pitchfork in 2020.

In 2022, her next studio album, “blue water road,” unveiled Kehlani’s blooming maturity, with attention-grabbing songs like “altar” and “up at night,” featuring Justin Bieber. The album received praise from critics and fans alike. In 2024, “Crash,” her fourth studio album, exposed the star’s emotional complexity and honesty, with standout tracks “After Hours” and “Next 2 U.”

“I actually made this album manic as hell. I am bipolar, and I didn’t discover (that) until literally the week of album release,” she shared. “It was a diagnosis that kind of made the album make sense for me because the album-making process was probably the most chaotic…” She combined pieces of songs with other pieces of songs, she explained, creating music in different countries, cities, and houses.

“It was a pretty insane process, and I just wanted to be able to have a pivot that got me out of like, ‘OK, I’m making the same thing over and over again.’ I just really wanted to take the chance for a pivot, and that combined with an insane manic episode… boom, crash,” she explained, adding, “I am happy that I put something out that was daring on my behalf. It got some cool nods, and I think it got people to take a peek into all the different ways my brain can work. The tour was the thing that really reignited my love for the album.”

“It’s the Everything for Me”

On November 21, 2025, Kehlani was honored with the Alchemist Award at Femme It Forward’s Give Her FlowHERS Awards Gala, a fitting honor for a songstress with transformative tendencies. Kehlani thanked the organization on social media, highlighting that she has the cover of “The Alchemist” inked on her arm, and describing an alchemist as “someone who transforms things for the better through an almost seemingly magical process.”

Stunning even when clad casually, the songwriter has undergone several transformations and gathered many tattoos in the process. The same year she appeared on “AGT,” ink emerged on her skin. She was just 14 when her best friend inked her knuckles, stick-and-poke style.

“I became a Guinea pig for all the homies who got a tattoo gun and were like, ‘Yeah, I’m doing tats in my garage, and tats in my kitchen, and tats in my bedroom, at my mom’s crib,’” Kehlani shared. “And I also had a lot of piercings. I just kind of skyrocketed into it.”

During these early days, she donned her natural curls and sported tomboy togs, wearing oversized tees and hooded sweatshirts, and then graduated to feminine streetwear, paring baggy pants with bralettes and bomber jackets, a combination of powerful femininity and masculinity that epitomizes her sexuality.

As she evolved, Kehlani’s fashion fluidity continued to flow with soft silhouettes, high-level glam, leather, latex, and wide-leg trousers, and her catalog of tattoos swelled. Notably, a vibrant, multihued sunflower envelopes her left shoulder, nuzzling one of her most tenderhearted tattoos: a baby’s arm sporting a bracelet with the name “Adeya,” planets dangling from her fingers. “It is her hand holding the universe, because I always want her to know that the entire solar system and all the stars in the world and everything’s possible — it’s all hers,” she said.

Two portraits on her left leg still give Kehlani an emotional charge to this day: one of her father and the other of her aunt. She said these tattoos give her strength, remind her of where she came from, and assure her that she is loved. “My dad’s portrait is peeking out of the pants on the ‘Crash’ album. We always thought that was really cool because it was such an accident,” she shared. “It’s like you see my face and then you look down my leg, and you see my dad’s full face just poking out of the pants. He’s my biggest guardian angel, and I thought that was really, really special that he got to be on that cover with me.”

“In My Feelings”

Focused on motherhood, her career, and self-care, the artist can reflect honestly about past behaviors and choices, owning the good and the not-so-good, while remaining committed to her convictions. She’s balancing a hectic schedule and centering herself on her surfboard — both figuratively and literally. She chooses to be “radically transparent” about her mental health and is focused on nurturing her inner landscape.

“I lost a lot last year; a lot changed last year. You know, there was a lot of mess and chaos and craziness last year, and also a lot of shifting because of my beliefs in my heart. And to see such a big turnaround, I really just want to say it’s entirely possible to have a thriving career and also stand for things that you believe in,” Kehlani shared. “And it’s entirely possible to change your narrative — and I’m not even talking about publicly, but change your personal story — at any time in your life by taking control of your healing and taking the reins of your world and going inward and doing what you need to do. I think those are the most important things. I get up and remind myself now, ‘You’re in control of all of this, and you just need to keep pushing and be consistent and really focus on your growth and keep your eyes on God.’”

Kehlani has weathered storms and is learning to meet the world more authentically. She’s “very, very settled” in who she is, letting go of the things she cannot control. “I am very uninterested in performance or trying to be any kind of all over the place. And it’s kind of just making me more simple, to be honest,” she said.

One day years ago, Kehlani was battling with her emotions when someone told her to smile because “today is the best day ever.” The uplifting phrase stuck with her, so she had it inked on her calf. “If you think about it, that means tomorrow is and the next day is, the next day is too, because every day is today,” she explained. “And it just reminded me to lift my chin up and poke my chest out and ground myself when I think the world is ending and my life is over and just say, ‘Hey, let’s slow down and remember: today is the best day ever.’”

As the conversation wrapped, Kehlani was readying herself for mom mode. “She’s about to sugar it up here,” she said, referring to Adeya’s imminent sugar rush. It’s these occasions that are perhaps the most important to Kehlani, and ones that remind her that “today is the best day ever.”