Artist Kehlani was born on the 25th of April 1995 as Kehlani Parrish in Oakland, California but has previously described her ethnicity as a mix of black, white, Native American, and Hispanic. Raised by her aunt due to her father dying when she was young and her mother constantly in and out of prison, Kehlani attended the Oakland School for the Arts initially with a focus on dance. However, whilst training in order to follow her dream to attend the Julliard School, she injured her knee which meant she turned her focus to singing. With her aunt mostly listening to R'n'B as she grew up, Kehlani said that her early influences in life were the likes of Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, and Jill Scott among her early influences. Later on when she was 14, she was recruited to join a local pop cover band known as PopLyfe. In 2011, they auditioned for the sixth season of America Got Talent, and end up finishing in fourth place in the finals.
Piers Morgan told Kehlani in their final performance that she had 'real talent' but she didn't think she needed the group. With fear of being sued by the groups management, Kehlani didn't pursueany type of music career after the group split up shortly after America's Got Talent finished. In 2012 and 2013, Kehlani became homeless, moving from house to house and often sleeping on sofas. She later was offered recording deals with a rap group by Nick Cannon (America's Got Talent presenter). She later rejected and moved back to Oakland. She then released her first solo track on Soundcloud called "ANTISUMMERLUV." Cannon called her back after hearing the song and set her up with an LA apartment and studio time. This lead to Kehlani releasing her first album called 'Cloud 19'. The album ended up being ranked 28th on Complex's list of the 50 Best Albums of 2014. In April 2015, she released her second album 'You Should Be Here' which was named by Billboard as the 'year's first great R'n'B album and debuted at number 5 on the States 'R'n'B/Hip Hop' charts. In order to compliment her album, she went on the You Should Be Here tour which sold out every North American date and European dates. Complex went on to call her one of the "15 Artists to Watch Out for in 2015" and Rolling Stones magazine named her one of the "10 New Artists You Need to Know." She was also nominated for a 2016 Grammy Award for Best Urban Contemporary Album. Kehlani also went on to collaborate with Zayn Malik on his single 'Wrong which was on his debut album.
Kehlani went on to record the single 'Gangsta' which was released by Atlantic Records on the 1st of August as a part of the Suicide Squad soundtrack. It was written by Kehlani, Myron Birdsong, Skylar Grey, Andrew Swanson, and JMIKE. Andrew Swanson and JMIKE also were the producers of said song. The song, lyrically, describes how the singer longs for a 'gangsta' to love her better than all the others do. This is said to be foretold by the relationship between Harley Quinn and The Joker in the film Suicide Squad. During the music video, clips of Harley Quinn and The Joker are shown portraying them as without a doubt in love with each other but Harley Quinn almost worshiping The Joker. This links to the love and passion that Kehlani is singing about wanting and needing.
The good thing about choosing this song is that it has a great tone about it. The tempo is a variety of both upbeat and slow meaning that it is diverse and we are able to use different types of choreography and different angles, lighting and mise-en-scene to adapt to the feel that the music is giving in that particular moment. Furthermore, this song is very diverse in terms that it is able to create many different ideas behind the song. For example, if the music video shows something like a girl swinging a baseball bat it would fit with the song However, if it also showed a female loved up with a someone else then it would fit with the song.
On the other hand, the song can be seen to be rather basic. This may be due to it being just another song about love or because it is following suit with other R'n'B songs by talking about 'Gangsta's' which entails crime and violence.
Overall, we have decided that this song would be the best song for our group because it s very diverse and gives us the room to adapt the song how we want it to be. It also is rather alternative with a different sound about it compared to some other songs that are around at the moment. Although it sticks to the original sound of R'n'B it allows me and my group to work with something that we wouldn't normally listen to.
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