Who Is Kehlani?

Kehlani Ashley Parrish is an American singer, songwriter, and rapper from Oakland, California. Born in 1995, she rose to prominence in 2014 with her debut mixtape Cloud 19, which earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Urban Contemporary Album and established her as one of the most compelling new voices in R&B.

Her music sits at the intersection of R&B, soul, and pop, with deeply personal lyrics about love, relationships, and self-discovery. She is known for her raw emotional honesty, silky vocal delivery, and ability to blend melodic hooks with introspective storytelling that feels uncommonly direct.

Kehlani is openly queer and has become an influential voice for LGBTQ+ representation in R&B music. She has a daughter named Adeya, born in 2019, and frequently writes about motherhood and personal healing throughout her discography. Her audience spans R&B fans, hip-hop listeners, and pop audiences who connect with her unflinching emotional transparency.

Where to Stream Kehlani's Music

Kehlani's entire catalog is available on every major streaming platform. Here is where to find her and how to get the most out of each:

• Spotify — Search her name for all six studio albums, her mixtapes, and collaborative projects. Her artist page includes an official playlist and full discography sorted by release date. Follow the artist page and new releases will appear automatically in your Release Radar every Friday.
• Apple Music — Available globally, with Dolby Atmos spatial audio versions of her recent albums on supported devices and AirPods.
• YouTube Music — Free tier available with ads. Her official music videos and lyric videos are also on her YouTube channel for free.
• Tidal — Offers HiFi and Master quality audio for listeners who want the highest possible sound reproduction, particularly useful for her more layered studio productions.
• Amazon Music — Included with Amazon Prime or an Unlimited subscription at no additional cost.

If you use Spotify, click Follow on her artist page immediately. This also activates in-app concert notifications when she announces shows near your location, which can be the fastest way to learn about new tour dates.

Her Discography in Order

Kehlani has released six studio albums and several standalone projects across her career. Here is her full discography in chronological order with a brief note on each:

1. Cloud 19 (2014) — Her debut mixtape. Raw and confessional, it introduced her voice to the internet before major label attention arrived. Standout tracks include Get Away, Alive, and ANTISUMMERLUV. Free to stream on all platforms.
2. You Should Be Here (2015) — A more polished EP that expanded her mainstream audience significantly. Features Down for You with Mila J, one of her most-streamed early collaborations. This is the project that got her signed.
3. SweetSexySavage (2017) — Her first full major-label studio album on Atlantic Records. More commercial and radio-friendly than her mixtape work. Features Distraction, CRZY, and Advice. A good entry point if you prefer polished pop R&B.
4. While We Wait (2019) — A bridging mixtape featuring Nights Like This with Ty Dolla $ign, which became arguably her most well-known song. Also features Touch and Nunya.
5. It Was Good Until It Wasn't (2020) — Widely considered her best and most complete album. A darker, more mature sound. Features Toxic, Can I, Everybody Business, and Wish I Never. Released during the pandemic to widespread critical acclaim.
6. blue water road (2022) — Her most personal and spiritually expansive album, exploring queer identity, healing, and growth. Features Altar, Honey, and little story. Her most critically decorated record.

If you can only listen to two albums, start with It Was Good Until It Wasn't then move to blue water road. These two records represent her artistic peak and give you a complete picture of where her sound has arrived.

Essential Songs to Start With

If you want a focused sampler before committing to a full album, these tracks give you a complete picture of Kehlani's range across her career:

• Nights Like This (feat. Ty Dolla $ign) — Her signature track. Lush, moody, and built around a hook that lingers for days after first listen. The production is immaculate.
• Honey — A warm, tender song from blue water road. Her most quietly personal vocal performance and a fan favorite at live shows.
• Toxic — This is her original track from It Was Good Until It Wasn't, not the Britney Spears cover. Stripped-back and emotionally precise, it demonstrates how much she can convey with minimal production.
• Distraction — Upbeat and self-assured. One of her most-played tracks across streaming platforms and an effective entry point for listeners coming from pop music.
• Again — A piano-driven R&B ballad that shows off her raw vocal ability without heavy production doing the work for her.
• Altar — From blue water road. Spiritual and bold, it marks a significant shift in her artistry toward something larger and more expansive than her earlier work.
• Get Away — From Cloud 19. A reminder of where she started and how consistent her voice and emotional directness have always been.

Build a playlist with these tracks and listen in the order above. You will hear her evolution from Oakland mixtape artist to a defining voice in contemporary R&B across roughly 30 minutes of music.

How to Follow Kehlani for Tour Dates

Kehlani tours regularly, and tickets move quickly once announcements go live. Here is how to stay ahead of the curve and avoid missing on-sales:

• Instagram (@kehlani) — Her most active platform by far. Tour announcements, new music previews, and personal updates almost always appear here first, often days before official press releases. Enable push notifications on her account so you see posts in real time rather than when you happen to open the app.
• Official website — kehlani.com lists all confirmed upcoming shows and links directly to ticket purchasing pages. Sign up for her newsletter here to receive presale codes before the general public.
• Spotify artist follow — When you follow her on Spotify, the app sends in-app concert notifications when she announces shows in or near your city. Check your Concerts tab periodically after following her.
• Songkick and Bandsintown — Both platforms let you track artists and send email or push notifications the moment a date is announced near your location. Set up an alert on either service and you will be notified automatically without having to check manually.

The most reliable combination is Instagram push notifications plus a Songkick or Bandsintown email alert. Between the two, you will rarely miss an announcement in your city.

How to Get Kehlani Concert Tickets

Kehlani shows sell out fast, particularly at smaller and mid-size venues. Follow these steps in order to maximize your chances of getting a seat at face value:

1. Create accounts on Ticketmaster and Live Nation before the sale. Save your payment details and billing address so checkout takes under 30 seconds. Accounts created on the day of sale can slow down the process significantly.
2. Get the fan presale code. Sign up at kehlani.com and follow her on Instagram. Fan presales typically open 24 to 48 hours before the general public on-sale, and the inventory at presale is often larger than people expect.
3. Join the queue as early as possible. On Ticketmaster, the virtual waiting room opens a few minutes before the official sale time. Enter it immediately when it opens. Do not refresh the page or navigate away — doing so resets your position in the queue entirely.
4. Use two devices at the same time. Queue on both a laptop and a smartphone simultaneously. Whichever breaks through first, complete the purchase immediately without switching to the other device.
5. Check the venue box office directly. For sold-out shows, venues sometimes hold a small allocation of tickets not released through the online ticketing system. Call the box office directly on the morning of the on-sale date.
6. Use verified resale only. If the show is sold out, purchase from Ticketmaster Fan-to-Fan Resale, StubHub, or SeatGeek. All three offer buyer guarantees that protect you if tickets turn out to be invalid. Avoid Craigslist and direct social media sellers, where counterfeit tickets are common and you have no recourse.

General admission floor shows sell out noticeably faster than fully seated venues. If you have flexibility, a seated configuration often gives you more time to secure a ticket before inventory runs out.

Kehlani's Influences and Artists to Explore Next

Understanding Kehlani's musical influences helps you appreciate what makes her sound distinctive and gives you a clear path of artists to explore once you have worked through her catalog:

• Aaliyah — Kehlani's most frequently cited influence. You hear it in her understated vocal delivery and in the layered, cool-toned production textures on her slower songs. If you enjoy Kehlani's quieter moments, start with Aaliyah's One in a Million.
• Brandy — The harmonic vocal layering on tracks like Can I traces directly back to Brandy's stacking technique from the late 1990s. Brandy's Never Say Never is the reference point.
• TLC — Her early mixtape work carries the same hip-hop crossover instincts and emotional directness that TLC brought to mainstream R&B, particularly CrazySexyCool.
• Janet Jackson — Kehlani has cited Janet in interviews specifically for her ability to combine personal emotional storytelling with broader social themes, which maps directly onto blue water road.

If you enjoy Kehlani and want similar artists to explore, start with Summer Walker for emotional directness, SZA for confessional lyricism about relationships, Jhené Aiko for spiritual and introspective R&B, and H.E.R. for vocal craftsmanship. SZA in particular shares Kehlani's willingness to be unflattering and unguarded in her writing, which is rare in mainstream pop R&B.