Before she gives birth to her daughter, Kehlani delivers her new single.
The Oakland songstress teams up with Ty Dolla $ign on “Nights Like This,” the first release from her upcoming mixtape. On the midtempo R&B jam, a brokenhearted Kehlani yearns for an ex lover.
“On some nights like this, shorty, I can’t help but think of us,” she sings before reconsidering. “You gon’ get my hopes high, girl / Just gon’ tell me more lies, girl.”
During an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1, Kehlani gushed about collaborating with Ty. “I love Ty. We’ve made songs and it just hasn’t come out because it hasn’t been the time,” she said. “This was just the perfect time for us both to finally put something out.”
In the accompanying video, Kehlani plays a scientist who reassembles a robot that lands at her doorstep. They establish a bond before the robot takes over her body and eventually burns down her house and kills Ty.
Kehlani is now readying a mixtape for release in February. “I’m not making no more pop songs on you hoes. I’m over it,” Kehlani told fans during an Instagram Live session. “You’re not getting any pop records from me, and if you do, just know it wasn’t my fault.”
In October, Kehlani announced that she was pregnant with her first child, a baby girl, who is due this spring. “This is weird but I’m like really excited to birth,” she told Lowe. “The entire process of being in extreme pain, but also extreme beauty, is very ceremonious to me.”
She is also working on a new album, the follow-up to her 2017 debut SweetSexySavage, which was inspired by her parents. “My next official album is a story. I’m telling stories I’ve never told,” she said. “It’s my parents’ story articulated into mine, articulated into a gift for my daughter, so she knows where she comes from.”