“Welcome to the biggest show of my career,” announces Kehlani, to ecstatic cheers. Fresh from three Grammy nominations, a banging 2024 summer hit – After Hours – plus a decade of sultry, sexually fluid songs to back those up, the California R&B singer should be on top of the world. Unfortunately, the air is very thin up there, especially at the tail end of a European tour.
“We were two seconds away from cancelling,” the star says. “I’m on my deathbed. I was struggling to breathe and talk.” Medical attention has ensured the show goes on, but Kehlani asks the audience to help them out by doing a lot of the singing. “Support me, don’t judge me,” they plead.
The latter request could be the overarching theme of Kehlani’s career. The singer has lived it not just in the recording booth or on stage, but in the full glare of social media scrutiny.
Few artists in their position haven’t endured some degree of intertwining between life and art. But Kehlani – who came out as LGBTQ+ in 2018 and now identifies as a lesbian, preferring they/them pronouns – plies their wares at a particularly busy intersection of prurient online commentary. Continuing topics include their relationship status (the internet is abuzz with a custody battle), what they are doing with their bodies (working out a lot) and where they are in their mental health journey (it’s a journey).
But Kehlani’s candid apercus on lust, love and their struggles are what make their work so compelling. Some titanium-plated swagger and one of the more elastic voices in R&B just add to that appeal. On the front foot, Kehlani has been vocal in their support for the Palestinian cause, most visually in the video for the set opener, Next 2 U.
To an overweening ex – and probably much of the internet – Kehlani has this to say (via Nunya, a track from long-ago 2019): “Ain’t nunya business to know who I’m with, or none of my shit, it’d be good for you to let it go.” And yet fan engagement with Kehlani’s work-life double helix is what has filled this partly seated London arena, where they have the second-largest audience outside their native San Francisco Bay area (the singer reports). So Kehlani battles on for an hour and a half, keeping the more acrobatic vocal runs in check. Their charisma fills the gap.
Other issues feel thornier, however. Kehlani’s most recent album, the lively Crash (2024), flirted with rock sounds. Kehlani’s tour band have taken the brief seriously. The long-haired, leather-jacketed guitarist often solos, his instrument held vertically. A man-mountain drummer pummels a kit the size of a small house. “This is a rock concert!” Kehlani declares near the end. The cartoon bombast is not what Kehlani’s voice needs at this moment – or, perhaps, ever. The only place where this heavy treatment seems fitting is the carnal, heavy-lidded Sucia, a borderline psychedelic cut from Crash.
But against all these odds, Kehlani and their catalogue deliver tonight. Toxic, from 2020, is the first track where fans break the sound barrier with their anticipatory screaming. “That damn Don Julio made me a fool for you,” Kehlani mourns ruefully.
Towards the end, there is Ring, Kehlani’s 2018 collaboration with Cardi B, where the attitude of both artists amplified the track’s heady yearning. Kehlani’s ample confidence was the topic of another summer mini hit last year – up-and-coming UK singer Jordan Adetunji’s Kehlani, whose remix Kehlani performs tonight.
You can tell the singer is especially happy to see their one live guest, not least because it gives them a few verses to catch their breath before attempting some vocal fireworks. Kwn (pronounced kay-wuhn) is a homegrown east London R&B artist whose appearance on Crash was one of the album’s notable introductions. (This time last year, Kwn was delivering Amazon parcels, she confides.) Clothes Off is a sapphic slow jam that sees the two singers facing off, trading melismas – one of the highlights of the set.
The adulterous When He’s Not There is another keeper with some particularly snappy writing. “I won’t end a happy home, but I’ll leave a condo broken,” purrs Kehlani, wickedly. It comes from While We Wait 2, a more R&B-leaning mixtape released in the wake of Crash.
Border is another sit-up-and-listen moment tonight, a mixtape cut that addresses Kehlani’s “demons and disorders” directly. “My exes want to see me in a padded room,” they sing, vulnerably, “But I think I need nature and a Valium.” Given the public storms they have weathered, it feels like it takes more than a mere fever to give Kehlani pause tonight.
