Kehlani On Her Virtual Concert, Return To Dancing, & Mental Health Philosophy

As the entertainment world continues to put a pause on live events, artists are still finding innovative ways to connect with fans, and Kehlani is no exception. The Oakland-born singer will perform her second studio album, It Was Good Until It Wasn’t, live in full for the first time since it was released in May 2020 in a pair of concerts that will happen on NoCap, a virtual concert platform with limitless “seating” space. As Kehlani tweeted recently of the May 10-11 shows, titled It Was Live Until It Wasn’t, “[T]here is NO CAP on the tickets. [M]eaning there is no ‘selling out.’”

Kehlani partnered with vegan makeup line Lime Crime to get her look together for the performances, in concert with the brand’s new Never Blend In campaign. NYLON caught up with Kehlani ahead of her concert to talk more about the partnership and why she’s excited about her return to dancing, which you can read in full below.

Why did you decide to partner with Lime Crime?

They approached with the idea. I thought it was super dope because I actually love their products. I do love that they're vegan and cruelty-free. I think that's really awesome.

Do you typically use vegan products?

Here and there, depending on what it is for; for my body, I tend to use vegan products. I don't find that for my skin type it often works out well for me, but makeup-wise, I think clean is awesome, but as far as skin care, I hate to say it, but the chemicals work better for me if I'm going to be honest.

What’s your daily beauty routine like these days?

With a kid it’s interesting. I feel like my skin care routine gets spaced out almost, because it's just depending on what I have time for. As far as beauty, I don't really wear any makeup at all, unless I really have to go somewhere. I don't have a daily beauty routine, but my skin care routine has lots of steps in it. I did a video recently explaining my skin care routine. That's been awesome to see the feedback of people who tried similar things and got good results, too.

When you do have to wear makeup, how do you approach putting a look together?

[The artists] all pretty much know that I keep it more on the simple side. I let them have fun, if they have suggestions as far as trying to switch it up. I think as a Taurus, I can be like, “I'm comfortable with this,” and then we just do what I'm comfortable with, but they're really good at being like, “Let's try this, let's do this,” and I'm pretty open.

With this being the first time that you're performing your album live, what are you most excited for your fans to see?

I'm really excited about the fact that I'm dancing again because people haven't seen that in years from me. That's exciting. I feel like it's like a return in a very specific kind of way. I was chilling for a long time, especially since I had a kid.

What inspired the return to dancing?

I don't know. It was just time. I missed it. My body missed it. The music sounded like it was right. It took a long time to get my body strength back up to dance in the first place, especially like dance and sing. That was kind of hard, but it's been awesome.

What do you do to make sure that your mental health is getting looked after?

Really just making sure that I'm really present every day. I think you can get caught up in a lot of emotions when you think about the future, you dwell on the past, and when you're just super present, you find all the reasons to enjoy every little moment. So I really just try to be here, because there's usually something to smile about here when you’re not overthinking about another time.