Kehlani has revealed the five R&B artists who she admires the most and her list includes Brandy.
It was a knee injury in junior high that turned Kehlani’s path towards singing after having trained as a dancer all her life. The California native’s upbringing in her aunt’s home exposed her to records from some of the R&B and neo-soul greats, all of which had an influence on Kehlani’s own sound and led to her collaborating with the greats of her own generation and earning a Grammy nomination for Best Urban Contemporary Album.
During an interview with Fat Joe on Instagram, the “Hands on You” rapper aimed to find out who Kehlani considers to be the top five artists in her mind. Given a choice between R&B and Rap, the 25-year-old chose the former, saying that “neo-soul was my s***.” “This is not in any order,” she prefaced the list. “Musiq Soulchild, India Arie, Brandy, Jill Scott… I got one more. Mariah Carey.” In what was only fair, Fat Joe then listed his own five. “I think Luther [Vandross], [Michael Jackson], Stephanie Mills… it always changes toward the end,” he said. “Babyface… Sade is right there though. Sade’s in a six, but she’s right there. I’m more of an R&B guy than a hip hop guy.”
In terms of her own music, the “Can I” singer has just collaborated with Phora on his new project. Kehlani features on the track “Cupid’s Curse” that appears on With Love 2, which dropped last week. Kehlani’s own fans are still waiting for the deluxe version of her sophomore album, It Was Good Until It Wasn’t.
