For those who have been riding with Kehlani since her enrapturing Cloud 19 and You Should Be Here mixtapes, this moment has been a long time coming. The Oakland R&B powerhouse has been steadily delivering some of the genre’s strongest and most beloved projects over the past decade and change — and she finally ascended to true crossover status with the success of last year’s “Folded.” A loving homage to ’00s R&B that traded on pronoun-less lyrics perfect for contemporary times, “Folded” became Kehlani’s first Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit (No. 6), while also earning her first two Grammys (best R&B performance and song).
Later this month (April 29), Kehlani will receive the Impact Award at Billboard Women in Music. That career-defining song — which earned a remix pack featuring the likes of Toni Braxton, Tank and Ne-Yo — is the centerpiece of Kehlani, the arena-headliner’s fifth studio album. Comprised of 17 tracks that painstakingly mine ’90s and ’00s R&B for both inspiration and guidance, while still feeling totally singular, Kehlani feels like the R&B blockbuster its namesake was born to create.
From a Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis-produced harmonic explosion (“I Need You,” with Brandy) to a rock-infused bedroom ballad (“Oooh”) and a gospel-influenced, accountability-taking finale (“Unlearn”), Kehlani hits every note that any album gunning to be an “R&B classic” should. Though the album’s tracklist does feel crowded (there are just five new totally solo songs outside of “Folded,” “Out the Window” and the 30-second intro), Kehlani deftly uses her collaborations to flaunt her expert grasp on different R&B song archetypes. She shows off her hip-hop bonafides by linking up with Missy Elliott (“Back and Forth”) and lifting The Pharcyde’s “Runnin'” (“No Such Thing,” with Clipse), and she also offers several vocal showcases through the template of male-female duets like “Shoulda Never” (with Usher) and the Leon Thomas-assisted “Sweet Nuthins.” “Anotha Luva,” which features a solid verse from Lil Wayne, recalls the springtime, go-go vibes of Rich Harrison’s early ’00s pop&B production, while “Pocket” completes a trifecta of winning Kehlani-Cardi B linkups.
By the end of its hour-long runtime, Kehlani stands as more of an examination of its creator’s relationship to R&B than a reflection of where the multihyphenate currently is in her personal life. The arc of a tumultuous romance is certainly there, but, for better and for worse, Lani keeps things fairly vague. In that vagueness, however, lies the opportunity for true universality, and with so many moments engineered for sing-alongs, it’s the right space for Kehlani to live in.
“All the R&B artists, we want R&B to be back,” Kehlani told Billboard’s Lyndsey Havens in her Women in Music interview. “We want good, long songs. We want three verses and bridges and modulations and all the things – we want that too.
We just didn’t think anybody else wanted it. I have an allegiance to the genre, and I’ll keep it there.” Anchored by some of her most impressive vocal performances yet, Kehlani is all but guaranteed to set the tone for mainstream R&B in 2026. Check out Billboard’s ranking of every track from Kehlani’s new self-titled album below.