Kehlani has opened up about a dark period of time that she went through while recording her new self-titled album in a new interview with Complex.
In the conversation with Jillian Superstar that came out on Apr. 23, Kehlani dove into the making of her self-titled album (which came out the following day) and how, at the beginning of the two-year period when she started creating it, she had to reckon with some emotional baggage.
“I went and locked myself in the room, and I started randomly processing a bunch of things from 2020,” she revealed around the 5-minute mark. “I started making all this weird music. All this dark, weird, and emotional shit with my engineer.”
Kehlani revealed that once she got all of that out of her system, the process for making the album resumed.
“When I went back to Los Angeles, I knew what time it was,” she said. “Weeks later came [eventual top 10 hit and Grammy-winning track] ‘Folded.’ I knew, ‘Oh, something’s happening.’”
Check out Kehlani’s interview with Complex below.
Elsewhere in the interview, Kehlani reflected on how Nick Cannon helped her out immensely in her early career. In the conversation, the singer revisited the period of time leading to her debut mixtape, Cloud 19, and how an offer from Cannon, who had first seen her on America’s Got Talent [where he was hosting and she was singing with the band Poplyfe], seriously catapulted her career.
“Nick Cannon called and was like, ‘Hey, I don’t know what you got going on, but come to LA and make some music, and I’ll give you some studio time,’” Kehlani said. “I’d never even had my own room before.”
Kehlani continued on, revealing that Cannon provided her a “fully furnished apartment” and that other artists also have “secret ‘Nick Cannon saved my life’ stories.”
“They’ll reach out to me and be like ‘You know, Nick did the same thing for me,’ and I’m like, what?” Kehlani said, calling Cannon a “great guy.”
