Transcript

- [Kehlani] I don't care how I look to anyone for how in love I am. It is a blessing to be in love. Some people go their whole lives, whether it's because of a circumstance or being scared or being too guarded or something, some people go their whole lives without experiencing love. Who am I? And also on some ego shit, who do I think I am to deny God in that way? God is love, love is God. You know what I mean? Who am I to deny that as many times as it presents itself in my life and every single time it cracks me open further?

- [aja monet] Hello listeners, my name is aja monet and you are listening to The Sound Bath, a podcast brought to you by Lush Cosmetics. I am so very excited about today's episode. We have none other than Kehlani, a cultural worker, singer, songwriter, and dancer. Kehlani is an incredible rising star and artist in the world. She is inspiring young people everywhere, not just to listen to her incredible music, but also to take lead in the ways that she's grown and healed and spiritually developed over the years by taking better care of herself and those she loves in her life. It's been really wonderful to see her journey and witness her as an artist in the ways that she's evolved. And I'm really, really grateful to consider and call her a friend at this point in my life and in some ways a little sister. So please join me in listening to this wonderful conversation with Kehlani. Thank you so, so much for making time in your schedule. I know that you just got off a tour. There's so much going on in your life, I'm sure. You're a mom, you're doing crazy, amazing things. You're selling out tours. You're living your life and so your time is precious and so I'm really, really grateful for your time. I think I just wanna check in with you and just see how are you feeling today? How is your heart? How is your body? How are you feeling in your current state of self? How are you feeling?

- [Kehlani] I'm good. I'm super good. I think I'm on the other side of some days that weren't so good and yet feel like the first couple days on the other side of that are always super, super bright and fun 'cause it feels like it's the first burst of clarity where everything that didn't make sense leading up to this just all of a sudden makes sense. So I feel really good today. How do you feel today?

- [aja monet] Good, thank you. I feel. I feel good, I feel grateful. I feel really grateful.

- [Kehlani] I'm excited.

- [aja monet] Yeah. So my question, one of my questions for you is the world describes you in a lot of ways. I'm sure there's so many other ways that people have named or see you in the world and I wanted to give you opportunity to share how you see yourself. So what are the ways that you like to be seen and how would you like to be addressed as a person in the world today?

- [Kehlani] I think that a lot of the ways in which I haven't been seen for the last however long I've been highly visible has just not been very human. And I think that I just am learning to really put this emphasis on making sure people see my humanity and really see me as a human being before they see things I've done or things I participated in or any extension of me. I really just want to always be seen as a human, which means I'm capable of all sorts of things. And I think that when people don't see me as a human, when something happens and it's a growing moment for me or it is a moment for me to be able to change and show that I've learned better, that I can do better, when you don't see me as a human and you experience me go through that, it's like end all, be all, end of the world because you put me on this pedestal of this not human thing. But if you see me as 100% human all the time, you know that I'm always gonna have hiccups in which I need to grow and I need to change and need to get better. So I think that I just don't put any emphasis on too much of what you see me as beyond that. Even as far as pronouns go, I've loosened up a lot on how heavy I have that conversation. I'm just like at this point I'm cool with however you see me as. You know what I mean? That's always gonna change. I might get into my 30s and be like, I want you to call me a man. I don't know. You know what I mean? So I just don't put myself into anything too permanent or too boxed in at this point. And there are certain scenarios where labels really help me and they help me identify and learn myself and express myself. But I'm kind of at this place right now in this current moment where just everything is up for fluidity.

- [aja monet] Yeah, that sounds like the name of the current game for everyone, I feel. At least this generation, it's really exciting to see this generation expanding and stretching how people show up in the world and how people identify. So I wanna ask you, you are rising in your career in a time where social media has been a huge part of everybody's way of sharing, expressing, and communicating. And, of course, there have been moments in your life where things that you may have not wanted to be shared was shared and disclosed for the world to see. And so I wanted to ask you, what is your relationship to social media as an artist in the world at this point? How do you create boundaries? Do you have boundaries? What do you see are some of the beauties of it and some of the challenges that you feel at this moment folks are not paying attention to or could share a little bit more about?

- [Kehlani] Yeah. I think there's always this hilarious set of extremes with social media. On one hand, it's so fucking tight to see my friends build entire lives and careers without having to attach themselves to a machine or being backed by something that would end up essentially on some sell-your-soul shit, I think people use that term way too intensely when it's really just you've given up what makes your soul free to put it in some kind of a machine processor type of thing. It's so cool watching my friends develop entire appreciative fan bases and even building community with these online opportunities. And I've seen people make friends, lovers, families, all type of things off the online space, so.

- [aja monet] You kinda hooked up on surfing through a friend on social media.

- [Kehlani] Exactly, exactly. I wouldn't have started surfing if I didn't meet my friend who I met on TikTok. There's so many things like that and people are learning about their culture, their religions, their mental health. You can meet spiritualists, therapists, all type of people online. I think when it's a tool, it's a fantastic tool. Now the dangers of it, I think it's so dangerous that any and everyone can have a platform to say whatever they wanna say without being vetted. And I'm not talking about hate comments; I'm talking about misinformation. I see so much detrimental, wrong spiritual information online that can get people's lives fucked with. I see so much wrong health advice, detrimental fucking health, like, all of these things that I'm just like, bro, you will put somebody in the hospital, you'll land somebody in a mental institution. You have to have so much discernment existing online to not be the person that watches one video and says, "All right, yep, that's it. This is how I'm going about something, this is what I'm doing." And also, you have to be really strong minded. You have to know who you are outside of the internet because if you come on the internet presenting yourself, you have to know that you could type one letter, one word and there were gonna be lots of people waiting to say whatever they wanna say about it. And you just have to know who you are because if strangers on their computers at home can make you forget entirely or question entirely who you are, then that can be just super dangerous existing in the world. And it took me a long time to get there. I'm just now, in the last two years, someone that the internet cannot flip upside down 'cause the internet used--

- [aja monet] I wanna to just talk about that.

- [Kehlani] The internet, I was being held accountable for God knows what. It got to the point where I think people just wanted to see me talk. So it'd be like, is this actually wrong? Do I have to apologize for this? Is this even how I think? Am I thinking for myself or did I just let this person think for me? Do I look like this to myself? Do I think I look like this? Do I think I act like this? What even am I? Who even am I? Who do I even like? All of these things all the time up until two years ago were always up in the air because of social media.

- [aja monet] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was gonna say that some of the ways that I heard about you for the first time was through social media and other people sharing stories about your life and who you were. But I never really knew, I just was like, oh, who's this artist? Let me go look up this music. And then that's how I kind of got into the world of your actual art. But sometimes it's hard because social media will make somebody's life bigger than the thing that they love and that makes them, that lights them up and actually inspires them; it's the reason why they are who they are. And so it's finding that fine line in this here life.

- [Kehlani] Absolutely.

- [aja monet] I wanted to ask you in an article which I never knew this until reading about it and it's really kinda cool to hear that you prefer the title cultural worker over artist.

- [Kehlani] Yeah.

- [aja monet] As someone who considers themself a cultural worker, it's really dope 'cause I feel like that is a statement to say that. It is in the legacy and in a tradition of other artists who consider themselves cultural workers and really knew what that meant. It is a political statement to make that distinction between just being an artist versus being a cultural worker. So I wanted to ask you more about what that means to you and how you evolved to come to that conclusion about yourself in the world.

- [Kehlani] I had a friend who is an activist and they were gracious enough at the time to educate me on what difference that would make in my life if I moved forward with that as what I decided to be. I very much do a lot of things behind the scenes that are making sure that what I do is aligned with my politics and what I believe in and what I stand for. I'm not gonna make a list of what I do because then that just defeats the fucking purpose, but there's been many an opportunity that I have angled to someone else, given to someone else, or just passed up because it didn't align with what I feel like I'm supposed to do. Even if it was just, hey, I'm not the accurate representation for what you're trying to do here and I get that I kind of fit the mold because I'm very ambiguous in a lot of ways and I guess that I've ambiguously been able to fit a lot of different molds 'cause I'm just enough of something for a lot of different communities. And in a lot of those spaces, I've had to be like, nope, I don't really adequately represent this. Here's somebody in this space that is actually out here doing this work or representing this 100% and they would fit better. But it's little things like that for me just in making sure that I'm always aligned in things I believe in. If I can get on Twitter and pop shit about it, I should be able to also carry that in my career. And I've gotten a lot quieter over the last few years with my politics or what I speak up about or things like that. It has definitely just been something that I'm like, let me actually try to just maneuver in this way in my real life because social media has become exhausting quite frankly and I feel like people haven't noticed how quiet I've gotten 'cause maybe they're used to me. But I used to be on social media 24-7 like this is what I'm doing, this is what's going on, this is what's happening. But I get on there, it's majority work and then I have a little bit of fun. Some people even tell me they forget that I have a kid because I'm not just posting my kid 24-7. But definitely still head on with the things I wanna be able to do while also making sure that I can do my jobs, that I can upkeep the things that I've started--

- [aja monet] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted to ask. On your Instagram, you had written that you were made of honey, fire, and cool waters. You are a poet in your own way. Do you see yourself as a poet? Do you read poetry? What's your relationship to language and how language liberates your mind and makes you think of other ways to express yourself?

- [Kehlani] I think that poetry is really important to read as a songwriter because we can get so literal and I could look at the same poem multiple times throughout the years and kind of every other year read it, be like, okay, that's what it meant. And it's important for me to also learn simplicity. And I think some of my favorite poets are simpler. Like Nayyirah Waheed is one of my favorites. She might be my favorite. You're up there in my favorites. But even just being able to someone say two sentences and it just haunts me, just gave me this relationship with songwriting to where if I was being too wordy, I would be able to just be like, how can I simplify this to where all I have to say is just enough? I've definitely written poetry in my life, but it always ends up turning into a song and the honey, fire, and cool waters a nod to my religion. And my religion is very poetic. My spiritual practice is very poetic. The entire religion and practice is based on songs and prayers and very, very long prayers. And the prayers are very poetic. And so being a part of this specific practice that allows me to see everything in that way, I think now I hear poetry completely different and I see poetry across the world completely different.

- [aja monet] Yeah, it's a tradition. It's a way of life, a way of perceiving or seeing the world. I wanted to definitely talk to you about your spiritual practice 'cause I feel like it's so funny the way we met was that Vic had told me about you. I'd known, obviously, about you and your music, didn't really know too much but Vic was like, oh yeah. We would talk about something somehow and then Vic would be like, you would fuck with my homegirl, Kehlani. Y'all would get along. And then that stuff happened in Ghana and you checked in and then as soon as I got back, ironically, BB invited us to the house and I got to spend time with you and it was such a really deep way to meet someone.

- [Kehlani] Yeah, in some kind of ceremony? I was like this was supposed to be really lighthearted. This kind of became a really intense ceremony.

- [aja monet] Woo, it was so, it was very intense. But it was cool because sometimes people treat spiritual spaces like oh my god, it's so intense and dramatic. And while there was a little bit intensity, I feel like you were talking about the things that you believed and that you felt in the room energetically very casually. Yeah. I see some up in here. What's going on? Who's walking around with all these old ladies? And I just, I really was touched by it because my grandmother was a Santera and the power of her tongue and being able to see so much could whip you into some truth. Right? And sometimes it would hurt a lot, but it was also just the ability to just state what it was as matter of fact. And so I wanted to ask, what was a big part of your development as a woman who now has this really kind of frank way of talking about your spirituality? Were you always like that and what sparked that? When did that come about?

- [Kehlani] Well, I mean definitely having the right elders and entering a committed spiritual practice and kind of having all that mysticism broken. I think the problem is that people have created this super power-esque thing around mediumship and ancestor veneration and even Orisha stuff. People have created this just weird, this gives you superpowers and you're gonna be so above everything and everything's just gonna be--

- [aja monet] Yeah, elitism.

- [Kehlani] Exactly. When these practices were given to enslaved Africans, well carried, at least my practice, this was literally given to basically across-the-world poor people who were trying to survive and contain their magic to be tangible in real life. These are practices that are implemented in everyday life that are being worked to actually free people, feed people, get people pregnant who couldn't have kids, to bring crops back, to keep people safe, to revolutionize entire countries. So I think when you go into a practice like that, it automatically makes everything so grounded and in the earth because you're like, this is no different than doing something in real life with my hands. Versus I think people overcomplicate the whole, they view it as it's this floating cloud above them that gives them magical powers. And even witnessing a ceremony of our kind from the outside, if you really don't know what's going on, it can look like it's the magical power shit going on, but you're like all we're doing it here is getting talked to and being held accountable hella so that we can go be good fucking human beings. That's literally what's happening. And it's hilarious when you witness Orisha talk from the outside and people weaponizing the Orisha and I'm gonna use them to do this or you don't wanna play with her 'cause she's gonna do this. I'm like, no. All that Orisha's gonna do is tell you to get your life together, how to get your life together, how to make yourself better, how to maneuver so you can be a part of other people's healing, how to be a good community member. That's it. So it doesn't allow me to speak on it in a way of just, oh I got this and you don't and I can do this. I will get my butt whooped for speaking like that. You want me to get in trouble with Ochún because I'm out here acting like I'm holier than thou when she's whooped my butt so many fucking times for even beginning to think that way. Also, I think people are in this really funny maximalism type of thing with spirituality. I just talked about this on TikTok 'cause I was in a Botanica the other day or maybe it wasn't a Botanica, it was a little spiritual store or something. I went for candles. And she was in front of me buying everything and I kept seeing her reference her TikTok. She was opening her TikTok and then she was buying everything and I just was like, I wanna let her figure that out, but I also wanna let people know that it doesn't take every single crystal, every single herb. I don't use crystals at all, but I have to mention it. Every fabric, every candle, every tool that you see at the store and then just if you don't have the connection, you're sitting here with a bunch of clutter and what comes and fills clutter is spirits that don't need to be there. So I think there just needs to be a conversation about this where it's like all that this whole connection is for that we develop and build is to maneuver through our life to the best of our ability and we keep clouding it with these trinkety, witchy ideas and online spiritual, even fucking everybody doing tarot readings on TikTok. Who are you reading? Who are you talking to? What spirits are you talking to and who's, who is this message? You know what I mean? It's just we all need a reset and a step back and then everybody will start to be able to apply it and talk about it matter of factly because they'll know and be connected to exactly what they need and they won't be grasping at everything. If I can feel everybody's grandmas in here, cool, I can feel everybody's grandmas. That doesn't mean I need to sit down, do a reading with every single person to talk about their grandma, what their grandma might need and want, and you gotta do this and gotta do this. That's for them to figure out.

- [aja monet] Yeah. That's interesting because I think about the video that kind of went viral of that random, what was it right-wing person that saw you at the drive-thru?

- [Kehlani] Yes.

- [aja monet] And apparently you were on the phone with your therapist.

- [Kehlani] I was in therapy.

- [aja monet] Yeah, it was, man, that was so lovely. But it's so.

- [Kehlani] And my therapy was, my therapist was on the phone like tell him to shut the fuck up. Tell him shut the fuck up.

- [aja monet] Of all people, right? Your therapist is the one like turn up, turn up. But.

- [Kehlani] She is gangsta.

- [aja monet] I wanted to ask you about therapy because I think about you talking about transitioning from the conversation around spirituality or spiritual practice and then into therapy and what that looks like for you to have chosen therapy. I wonder what was your journey to get to the point where you even said, okay, I need a therapist and then what role does therapy play in relationship to the fact that you also, you have a spiritual practice to help you? So yeah, what is the line between the two, but what even triggered or started your relationship with therapy?

- [Kehlani] I was in therapy growing up, but because when they put you on medication you have to have a therapist as well as a psychiatrist. So my relationship with it was always so anti and I hate y'all and I gotta come sit in this office after school and talk to people. And I was so like, you know, you're a kid, you don't really see the worth of any of that. And then I don't even remember most of it. But as soon as I was able to afford a therapist and that's why I also get touchy with the subject of being like everybody has to have a therapist 'cause that's a privilege that I can even say that.

- [aja monet] Of course, it should be covered and people should have access to it. But it is what it is.

- [Kehlani] Yeah, it definitely shouldn't be, but it's why I try to be really careful with that language. But I knew that I needed a therapist when I caught myself being in a spiritual psychosis. And spiritual psychosis, for anybody listening that does not know what that is, is when you make everything spiritual. And this is before I got in my spiritual practice. This is like, oh yeah, I must be experiencing this, this must be going, this must going. I'm like whole time I just don't have the actual legitimate tools to be here on this plane dealing with my own human shit. I can't blame this on spirits, I cannot blame this on ancestors, I cannot blame this on energy or anybody else's energy. These are actual things that I'm experiencing that have to do with freaking clinical, scientific terms like trauma and repression and dissociation and things like that that I'm like, okay, if I'm sick, I go to a doctor. If my mind is going through it, I should probably go see someone who specializes in the mind. I'm going to therapy. And I remember that my biggest fear with therapy was that I was gonna spend weeks and weeks and weeks explaining my life story to someone. But how I knew that my therapist was for me was in the first session she literally said, "Look girl, you don't gotta tell me nothing about how you grew up. You don't gotta explain your life story to me. What you're gonna do every week is you're gonna walk me through your week and what you dealt with in your week and what you're experiencing day to day and if there's anything that you feel like you could have handled differently or that you wanna have some type of tools to handle it differently when it comes up the next week." And that's how I knew she was the one. So I knew she was the one because I felt like no matter what you do, and especially in the space of spirituality, when there's always room to grow and there's no ceiling that you can hit, you have to have a grip on your actual real life or else you can just fly off the handles because there's no ceiling you can hit. You can just go all over the place. And we have a huge saying in my religion that spirituality and spiritual practice does not take the place of mental health. It does not. Certain things can be spiritual, yes, but you also need a therapist. You can sit in a reading in front of a priest in Lukumi and the first thing they will say is, "And you need a therapist." They do not sit there and evade all of that. That is a super-spiritual misconception. If you go to a priest and they're like, "We don't believe in therapy," red fucking flag, run. You know what I mean? So I think that it's important for me especially to have the tools to not fly off the handles because you're given so much responsibility when it comes to spirituality, especially if you're gonna be in some form of priesthood or initiate into something that eventually gives you a place of eldership or or teaching anyone else. You have to do everything it takes to be grounded and good in yourself so that you're not out here bullshitting on anyone else because now you have a big responsibility. So I gotta keep my shit together so that I can even think about being responsible for anyone else.

- [aja monet] Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about "Blue Water Road"? What, this came out this year. It's been so beautiful to see your journey and I would love to know a little bit about why you titled that, but then you are a blue water road a little bit.

- [Kehlani] That's why. I mean I was trying to nod to this place that I had gotten to mentally while also being very literal with my spiritual practice because a blue water road is a river and it all, the album started on the street Blue Water Road in Malibu and I started that album there, left to go do ceremony, and came back a different person, starting my year-long ceremony process. So when I came back to it I was like holy shit, that was the last place that I was my old self. But the title of it feels like it's my new self, so I kind of wanted to honor that with the title. And it was funny because the reception was exactly what I thought it would be. I knew that the numbers would be lower. I knew that the reception would be we wanted toxic you and we wanted heartbroken you and we wanted you that was talking about all these just, I hate the term 'low vibrational' but goddam low vibrational. And I knew that I was taking a risk if I was playing the numbers game because my last project did exceptionally well, was like a number two album. People were like, look, your things are are getting to this size that it makes sense what you're supposed to be at da, da, da. And then here I am like well I'm gonna make this really sweet, really light, airy, fun album. And luckily the people that were in the studio with me every day seeing the emotions that these songs came from and talking about these lyrics as I'm writing them, that's all that I needed to reassure me that I was doing the right thing. Because that room was magical. Everything in that room where we made it, even how just in front of the ocean with the windows open and all the light, we weren't in this dark studio room at nighttime with no windows and alcohol and shit like it was on my last. I was drunk as hell recording my last album. I was completely sober at 100% of the time of recording this album.

- [aja monet] Wow.

- [Kehlani] Which is also another difference. And it just, I was so happy with it when it was done that it didn't even matter for the first time. It did not matter what this album did to me. I didn't give a fuck about the reviews, I didn't give a fuck about the numbers, I didn't give a fuck about the acknowledgement. Granted it got pretty cool fucking acknowledgements and really great reviews, but this is the first time that I was like, don't even tell me. I don't care. 'Cause wait till I tour it, wait till I tour it and you see the effects of what it's like to sing altar in a room full of people who are thinking of all the people that they lost and they're fine the entire concert until they start bawling, crying, and putting their hands in the sky. It's like church. I didn't even think my concert could do that. And we get to altar and people are clutching items they've inherited from their family members and it has become not a normal experience because of the way I've engulfed this album spiritually to where that's all that matters is the supporters, the fans in the room are feeling like this is different for us.

- [aja monet] There's a poem Mary Oliver, this poet, wrote and it's called "The Uses of Sorrow". It goes in parentheses, "In my sleep, I dreamed this poem". And the lines are, "Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too was a gift." And I wanted to.

- [Kehlani] Yeah.

- [aja monet] Yeah, I wanted to ask you in response to that poem, what resonates for you, knowing that sorrow has been a big part of your process and how people see you in the world. And maybe that's the entry point to your music and to your creativity, but it's also been, it seems to be a real gift. And so I wanted to ask you, what was a moment or a person or an experience that you had to go through that really, really ended up in the time it seemed like, damn, I gotta go through this, what? But it was in retrospect and in reflection, now that you've had time to look back, it was truly a gift and helped you really center on who you are and what you need to be doing in the world?

- [Kehlani] I mean, I crashed and burned in front of the entire planet. I crashed out. It was over. I attempted to take my own life and it played out very publicly, every step of it. And it took me years of being like, why me? Why me? Why me? Why did this happen? Why was I weak? Why did this go? Why would they do this to me? Why did the world do? Why did the world view it like this? Why wasn't I supported? And then as an adult adult, 'cause that shit happened when I was 20. I'm 27. I think I started really looking at it differently around 25. I was able to be like, man, would I really know who I am enough to where nothing could ever take me out this planet ever again if I didn't go through that? Because I was fragile. If it wasn't that, it was gonna be something else. Maybe it would've been drugs or maybe it would've been a deep enough heartbreak or maybe it would've been my career shifting and me not being able to understand it. But that happened at a pivotal time where I immediately, through that healing process, developed a sense of self that's super irreplaceable. Healing through that really had me looking at myself like I know what I'm capable of, I know who I am, and most importantly, I know what could never hurt me again. And it even kind of shifted my relationship with social media and the outside world. I was like, y'all have, for lack of a better words, killed me. Y'all could never kill me again. Y'all could never hurt me that deeply again. I can remove myself and my life outside of here is fantastic. And I think people have confused me removing myself on social media with me having a mental breakdown and I'm like, no, this is my superpower. This is what I know how to do. I know how to get off of here and live in the real world when this shit gets tough because I'm never gonna let none of that shit happen again. And I think about that situation often on some not it could have been worse 'cause it could, everything could be worse. But I've seen the other side of all of this. You know what I mean? It also shifted my perspective of my career. It just shifted everything. When your heart stops and it comes back, whatever you experience changes you forever. And I came back like, oh, none of this shit matters. I was on some I gotta prove myself, I gotta get this money. Who even wants to be the fucking richest person in the world? No, this shit isn't real, this shit isn't real, this shit isn't real. I had a clear understanding and I think I've been able to move very clearly throughout my life and career because I fully understand what is real and what's not and it couldn't have happened without that situation.

- [aja monet] Yeah, it seems like God, universe, whatever you wanna call it, spirit will trudge you through things just so that you can be a testimony. I feel like you're definitely a testimony to a lot and there's the other side of what you experienced and I think you went through it, you survived that and you lived through that so that you could be on the other side to tell another story. And so I think that's really beautiful to see your growth and development. And this is where, I guess we'll end on this note, but love.

- [Kehlani] Oh, man, love.

- [aja monet] As someone that is deeply inspired by love and the many phases of love and what it does to one's heart, one's dream, one's inspiration, I just wanted to ask you, what is one of the most valuable lessons you've learned about yourself as a lover, as a person who loves deeply? Because you've had very public relationships and I know that that must not be easy, but you love unapologetically and you love loudly. And I think that's what love is, right? I mean, love will have you with the clown with the red nose and everything, being a clown walking around.

- [Kehlani] Clown nose on. Clown costume, clown shoes.

- [aja monet] I've been a clown for love too many times, but I'm not embarrassed or ashamed.

- [Kehlani] Oh, man, love.

- [aja monet] What is the most lesson you've learned?

- [Kehlani] I think that that's the lesson though. That is the lesson. I think there's too much pride in love. There's too much pride with you're thinking too far ahead of what this could end up as and what it'll have you. I don't care what I look like. I don't care how I look to anyone for how in love I am. It is a blessing to be in love. Some people go their whole lives, whether it's because of a circumstance or in being scared or being too guarded or something. Some people go their whole lives without experiencing love. Who am I? And also on some ego shit, who do I think I am to deny God in that way? God is love, love is God. You know what I mean? Who am I to deny that as many times as it presents itself in my life and every single time it cracks me open further? I don't ever regret any love I've ever had or shared or been in no matter how treacherous it's been because it has opened something in me that I was unable to unopen myself. And as someone who's literally getting out and maneuvering right now through post what I consider a very deep love and I'm still gonna have those emotions for a long ass time, I'm still learning hella shit that I'm like, damn, nothing would've taught me that except this, except this girl and this situation and this year at this age of my life. So that paired with I'm just not scared of shit and I'm not scared to start over and I'm not scared of looking crazy for starting over. I don't give a fuck if I fall in love 800 times on this planet Earth. That was my journey and that was what God sent me here to do. And hopefully, somebody looks at me and goes, I'm not scared to try again again even if it's only once. You don't have to do it 800 times like me, but maybe my 800 times will spark your I'm just gonna try this one more time and then you meet the love of your life and then God bless, call me to sing at the wedding.

- [aja monet] Facts.

- [Kehlani] So that's just what this shit is about. What else are we here for?

- [aja monet] There's nothing like love. Well, Sade had it best, love is stronger than pride. My last question for you and we'll close out is a question that we ask all of our guests as we end. I wanna ask you what sounds come up for you that bring you a sense of calm, wholeness, peace of mind, maybe even just what are sounds that you return to that really resonate with you?

- [Kehlani] Well, I have a few. A bell. I love a bell. River. River water, running water in general, or rain. I really like sitar. I like sitar a lot. And whatever's in like Hindustani music. Also Conga drums will always make me feel like I'm a little more here than normal. And then violin. Violin makes me ache from the core. You could play a violin and everything just starts aching and I'm like, ugh. So I don't know if that's necessary, I return it for good reason, but if I put that shit on, my mind is instantly going in circles and my body's in it too, but those are my sounds.

- [aja monet] Well, thank you so much for your time. I am so, so inspired and grateful that you made time. It was so lovely to speak with you. Anything else you wanna share?

- [Kehlani] All I wanna say is if you're listening to this podcast, you're very smart because this is a very, very special, important woman that you can all learn and take away a lot from. And very much hope that you continue to support everything that she does and thank you for having me.

- [aja monet] Okay, bye-bye. Love you.