Earlier this march, Kehlani was scheduled to meet with her record label. She was preparing to put out her second album— her first since having a baby and a return to her R&B roots. There was a plan to open on Justin Bieber’s Changes tour, along with a number of dreamy solo dates. Executives at Atlantic told her they believed in the album, which was supposed to be released on April 21, also her 25th birthday, but the coronavirus pandemic was making it impossible to chart a plan for its promotion. It would have to be postponed.
“I was casting actors and actresses. I was doing all kinds of shit,” she says of all the preproduction she’d completed by the time of the mid-March meeting. We’re speaking over a Zoom video call; Kehlani is sitting alone in a sunlit bedroom in her Los Angeles home. (Later on, she’ll be joined by her dog, a pint of ice cream, and a tequila drink with an orange slice peeking out.) Today happens to be the original release date. “They were like, ‘We just don’t think you should [release it],” she says. “And then I went in my room and made the ‘Toxic’ video on my laptop.” She posted it on YouTube at the end of March. “People fucked with it,” she adds.
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