Kehlani is waxing candid about the surprise success of ‘Folded.’
The omnipresent record has become her biggest hit to date and, from the lens of many, her signature record.
Yet, during a visit to ‘The Breakfast Club’ this morning (December 8), she revealed that the push for the track came more from passion than a unified belief in its potential.
Full story below…
Speaking on ‘Folded,’ Kehlani fessed:
“It feels really good. It’s been a long time coming. I’ve been getting told for the last eight years of my life, ‘you know, you’re always one song away, you’re one song away, you’re one song away — we see it for you.’ And so to have the song and everything be changing in this way, it’s really nice.”
When asked whether she knew that the record was going to be a smash, the R&B belle made clear that everything from the song to its success was an accident:
“No (I didn’t know). It was the most accidental thing in the world. Like, even making it was accidental. It came about accidentally. I’m in LA, I get a call to come finish this feature, but the guy’s like, I’m about to go on this massive tour, so you have to come finish it with me in person. Bring the producers, come to Miami.
Bring the producers, we go to Miami, and for two days we just can’t figure out this song that we’re supposed to finish. And we don’t want to waste the time. So we went to a studio house with Don Mills, who actually plays the guitar on the song. And Dre Harris came, and the first beat he played was the folded beat from his boy DK the Punisher. And I bring it in the other room and I just keep singing this hook, and everybody’s like, that’s really cool — like, let’s build on it.
And we stayed there for a week. But every single day after we made that song, it’d be the one song from the camp that we just kept replaying. And I hit my label and I was like, I don’t know… like, I know you guys are looking for — what is it — it’s like June or July at this time, I’m not sure. I know you guys are looking for the club single, the banger. This is not that. Like, this isn’t really song of the summer. I don’t… but this feels like an introduction to where I’m at mentally, musically — my maturation, my sonic journey. And let me just tease it. Let me put it out. You guys don’t have to freak out. But it feels good.
And it just kind of took its own life. And there we are.”
As the age-old adage goes: sometimes the best things to happen are totally unplanned for!
Rather than resting on her laurels, Kehlani is working the promotional trail for her follow-up effort, ‘Out The Window.’