If you haven’t heard of Kehlani by now, allow me to put you on. The 20-year-old singer from North Oakland, California has a following that has grown significantly since she made her official debut last year. You may have seen her performing during her tour run with G-Eazy a few months ago or chillin’ in the studio with Iamsu! and his HBK Gang. Now you can see her on the front of the upcoming edition of The FADER, in which she reveals her life story, from her rough beginnings to the moment she landed her new record deal. Read the story in full after the jump!
Kehlani graced the cover of the new edition of The FADER. In their extensive cover story, Kehlani kept it candid and spoke about everything in her life as well as her music. The California native, who made her breakthrough with her 2014 mixtape Cloud 19, revealed that her mother gave birth to her while on the phone with her father and was born premature and “like, not breathing.”
Kehlani was taken to the hospital but since her mother was on the run, she was sent back to jail. Kehlani was briefly in foster care before her aunt adopted her. A few years later her mother came back into her life in an unusual way.
“At that point, my mom had two other kids. I just couldn’t understand why I was the only child who couldn’t be around her. She would be doing her shit, then get clean for two months, but I was never allowed to stay with her, and I couldn’t grasp why. They would be literally dragging me out of my mom’s crib, holding-on-to-the-walls type shit. Screaming like, ‘Why am I the oldest and I can’t be here? Don’t you think I’m the most mature?’”
She also talked about her previous attempts at music during her high school years. Kehlani spoke about her time as the lead vocalist of a cover band, who auditioned for NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” and got denied. She also revealed some personal details about the beginning of her love life in high school where she had both boyfriends and girlfriends.
“I got my first girlfriend in ninth grade. Then I told her I didn’t know what I wanted and broke up with her. I think I was always just, like, you have to be gay or you have to be straight—that those were conflicting. I learned that there’s really no wrong or right, that it was cool to like everything. But it was a lot for me.”
Kehlani also spoke about her most recent record deal With Atlantic. Read what she had to say in the full cover story here.
