Kehlani’s latest music endeavor proves to be a solid body of work.
Last Wednesday, R&B singer Kelani dropped a fourteen-track mixtape titled “While We Wait 2” just two months after dropping her thirteen-track album “Crash.” Kehlani explained on instagram that she created the project in the course of two weeks with the exception of one long-awaited track and two bonus remixes. Thematically, the record revolves around forming a secret romance and lovemaking away from the public eye. In addition to Kehlani’s vocals, the listener is introduced to a variety of new artists featured on several tracks.
The mixtape begins with the opening track, “Love Like,” an old-school R&B love song where Kehlani confesses her desires and needs for the type of relationship she wants to have with this person. On the second track (and my personal favorite), “When He’s Not There”, Kehlani sings on a sultry instrumental about how she and another woman are seeing each other whenever her boyfriend is not at home. “I won’t end a happy home, but I’ll leave a condo broken” is arguably one of my favorite lyrics of the whole album. She enlists the help of R&B singer Lucky Daye, marking their second duet together after “Can You Blame Me?” Matching the same sensual energy on the third track, Kehlani and kwn (pronounced kay-wuhn) go back and forth about wanting to take each others’ “Clothes Off.” The fourth track, “S.I.N.G.L.E.” finds Kehlani singing she “will never fall in love again” due to her partner’s lack of communication. After that song ends, a deep voice saying “one two three four” transitions us into “Know Better” (featuring Lil Mo & Vince Staples); a song about not wanting to declare a relationship official, despite her partner wanting to become official. Kehlani initially teased the song back in 2019, so several Kehlani fans were elated to finally hear the track. Personally, I do not think Staples’ rap verse was needed on the song.
Tracks six through eight are much slower and more vulnerable. “Border” has a very different theme than the rest of the songs on the project, as she expresses wanting to run away from her problems and insecurities. After that, “Form Of You” begins with a spoken word poem intro by Childofnines and ends with an outro by R&B singer Destin Conrad. The piano-led song topically revolves around Kehlani loving how they act whenever they are around their partner. Kehlani continues the story in “Let Me Down (San Diego Interlude)” and sings that she does not want her partner to hurt her like others have done in the past. “Around” and “Ballin” are more fast-paced and return to the topic of loving someone, without the rest of the world knowing they are together. The mixtape tempo begins to slow down once again with the next two tracks “First Life” and “Slow Dance” (featuring R&B singer Dixson). The last two tracks are bonus remixes of two songs from her previous album “Crash;” “8” featuring British R&B girl group FLO and “After Hours” featuring Brazilian singer Ludmilla.
Throughout all fourteen tracks, Kehlani takes the listener through a rollercoaster of emotions and stages in her relationships. She is able to captivate her passions, her emotions and her vulnerability so well within the mixtape. Although the mixtape is good, it is not perfect; one critique is that there are topical transitions between songs that feel very sudden. For example, the immediate transition from “Clothes Off” (a song where two women are making love) to “S.I.N.G.L.E.” (a song about Kehlani renouncing love of any kind). Another critique, there were too many features on the mixtape. Even though Kehlani chose good artists for features, I think a lot of the collaborations would have been just as good as solo songs. Despite both of these critiques, I think this is a great listen for R&B fans, and would recommend it for those just discovering the genre.
