Kehlani – “The Letter”

Kehlani – “The Letter”

Today, the Oakland R&B singer Kehlani released her album-that-she’s-calling-a-mixtape You Should Be Here; we posted her Chance The Rapper collab “The Way” yesterday. The whole album is a fine piece of Jhené Aiko-style airily hooky R&B. But the real showstopper is “The Letter,” a heartwrenching ballad about feeling abandoned. Kehlani doesn’t have a huge rocket launcher of a voice, but the song feels like a case study in how a relatively limited singer can still conjure huge, soul-wrecking feelings when she absolutely commits to a song. This is one of the best R&B songs I’ve heard in a long time, and you should check it out below.

You Should Be Here is out at iTunes now, and you can stream the whole thing at Soundcloud.

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