The Candid F-Yous and Miss Yous of Kehlani’s ‘While We Wait’

Kehlani’s mixtape “While We Wait,” released in late February, is dressed with a yearning for love like many an R&B album, yet harnesses Kehlani’s distinctive brand as both a romantic and a player. In “While We Wait,” Kehlani creates a profound emotional experience, invoking large-scale romantic sentiments through a simple and candid lens.

The R&B icon’s latest mixtape exemplifies both the genre and her artistic development, recreating the highlights of past albums and mixtapes “SweetSexySavage,” “You Should Be Here,” and “Cloud 19.” Compared to her last album, “SweetSexySavage,” it is much shorter at nine songs and similarly has a cohesive feel, while the tone and message of songs from “Feels” to “Nunya” to “RPG” vary greatly. “RPG” speaks to the heavier themes of expectation and disappointment while “Nunya” makes it clear to Kehlani’s ex that who she’s with is none of their business. She leaves behind some of her stylistic idiosyncrasies, such as the whirring that opens “Keep On” or the monologue and phone-ringer-tone “Intro” pieces of previous mixtapes, but nonetheless creates something that elicits nostalgia and bitterness as it uplifts. Kehlani does not refrain from other, well-incorporated modes of unconventionality, like the xylophone opening of “Love Language” or the hollow, flat, and unplaceable instrumental harmony of “Butterfly.” She departs from the at-times pop, at-times acoustic feel of “You Should Be Here” to make something more beautifully R&B. While too many musical flourishes overwhelmed past tracks, Kehlani’s highly feminine and youthful voice accentuates the best in this album.

“Nights Like This,” which features Ty Dolla $ign and reached 67 on the Billboard Top 100, is the track most exemplary of Kehlani’s style and content. Like other songs in the album, the title alludes to the relatable reminiscing packed into the lyric, “On some nights like this, shawty, I can't help but think of us.” “Feels” and “Too Deep” do the same — the simple sentiments they dwell upon are fully disclosed in their titles. This simplicity does not impede them from being the perfect ruminative listens for those deep in their “feels” or with flings that are becoming “too deep.” Kehlani has a laudable ability to make what would otherwise be cheesy real, human, and beautiful. The word “feels” isn’t a cop-out, just like Mariah Carey’s “Emotions” — sometimes people just feel feels, and they’re loaded. A male rapper offers the track’s alternative romantic voice (although in “Nights Like This,” Kehlani sings about a woman) in “Nunya” featuring Dom Kennedy, “RPG” featuring 6lack, and “Footsteps” featuring Musiq Soulchild. “RPG” and “Footsteps” are highlights of the mixtape. In “Nunya,” the tone of Kennedy’s rap cuts too sharply against Kehlani’s voice, while in “Nights Like This,” Ty Dolla $ign is at once refreshing and complementary.

It is striking how successfully Kehlani employs repetition in her tracks, each composed largely of repeated choruses. “Footsteps,” opens with the sound of sloshing water, synths, and the later addition of a lissome beat. The repetition of the lyric “And when I walked away,” with its drawn-out notes and an echoing background melody, enhances a sentimental, somewhat mournful feeling. She draws upon the earlier sound of water to create a metaphor for the water that slips through her ex-lover’s fingers and drowns them as it washes away the footprints she leaves. Songs like “Too Deep,” in which the chorus is the line “too deep” repeated six times, work, but playing the song twice consecutively is tiring.

Kehlani hypes herself up in “Morning Glory,” which opens with a crescendo like the start of day, shrugs off toxicity in “Nunya,” and indulges love despite all the apprehension that may be linked to it in the soft-spoken, vocals-dominated “Butterfly.” The emotional experience that “While We Wait” provides is empowering.