Kehlani has been one of my favorite artists since 2014 with the release of her first mixtape, “Cloud 19.” She’s someone who continuously proves R&B is not dead with hit after hit.
On Sept. 14, Kehlani released a trailer to announce their upcoming album, “Blue Water Road.” If that wasn’t exciting enough, the very next day their new song “Altar” came out with an accompanying music video. They popped up in a lot of features this year, so I was extremely excited to finally listen to something that was all their own and to find out a new album was on the horizon. The song and video certainly were not what I expected, but in the best way. “Altar” tells the story of Kehlani honoring a person they’ve lost by building an altar for the person who passed away and how even though the person isn’t physically with them anymore, they feel even closer to the person than before. The music video perfectly encapsulates the metaphor, showing Kehlani dancing with and being watched over by an angel.
In 2020, Kehlani unfortunately had multiple people close to them pass away. In a post about the new song, they revealed that experience was the inspiration behind “Altar” saying, “understanding grief and death has been a journey. I’ve gained a lot of angels in my life but the last year has showed me that even after people have passed on, if I choose to, I can have an even closer relationship.” They could have easily written a sorrowful song detailing the difficulties of dealing with grief. They very well may have songs like that on the new album, and there is nothing wrong with that. I think it’s beautiful how they took something incredibly hard to deal with, and instead decided to write a song about gaining something from a loss, becoming closer to someone after their death, and honoring someone by keeping the promises they made to the other.
I adore Kehlani not only for her music, but also for the person she is. When I first discovered Kehlani, she identified as bisexual with female pronouns. She was the first celebrity I knew who was openly bisexual and that practically validated my existence as a fellow bisexual woman of color. Now, Kehlani identifies as lesbian with she/they pronouns, which just makes me love her even more. I adore anyone who is unapologetically themselves and Kehlani embodies that description. It’s been wonderful to see Kehlani’s growth both musically and I can’t wait to see what else “Blue Water Road” has in store.
