Breaking Down Kehlani’s R&B Roadmap
The best social media approach for an R&B artist looks like reverse curation. Amplify vulnerability, rather than opting for an overly formatted, calculated stream of content.
It’s hard to know how to cut through if you’re an R&B artist today. As the landscape of modern culture has evolved, no figure has been more at the forefront of the genre than Bay Area superstar Kehlani.
Sure, it’s easy to point at her 12+ million Instagram followers and assume that it should be easy to sell out venues and get millions of streams with that kind of following. But it didn’t start that way. If you’re coming up as an R&B artist today, we have the blueprint for you. We broke down a few key, ground-level tactics you can pull from her rise to apply to your career tomorrow.
EXPRESS INTIMACY WITH EVERY PLATFORM
R&B music is perhaps the most vulnerable style of music – keep that in mind when you build out your approach to releasing songs. Kehlani’s music was and is still an intimate experience. Since dropping her first single “ANTISUMMERLUV” on SoundCloud in 2013, she has yet to abandon the DSP that helped her hook so many adoring fans.
Before her 2020 album, It Was Good Until It Wasn’t, Kehlani chose SoundCloud as her platform of choice to release “Toxic,” paying homage to the platform that helped start it all for her. At the end of the day, it wasn’t about accumulating streams and driving up numbers for her next royalty statement, it was about an authentic, nostalgic gesture for her fans.
In your case, the experience of engaging with each drop should feel intimate to fans as well. A release shouldn’t necessarily feel too calculated or official. After all, the idea is that you’re releasing music that is a true representation of your most emotional self, so fans shouldn’t have any barrier to accessing that. The experience of accessing the music online should match the emotional, intimate experience of the song or album itself. Utilize any direct-to-consumer platforms to create intimacy with the fans who are most connected to you and your emotions before you release them to the broader world.
SHARE YOUR STORY USING BRAND PARTNERS
Kehlani’s brand partnerships are just vessels of transmission for R&B-related elements of her personality. Her collab with Fashion Nova supported her sexuality; her campaign with Fenty highlighted her sex appeal.
For most R&B artists, the key to gaining a sizable fan base starts by focusing on quality music that makes a connection from ears to the heart. While Kehlani’s music checked that box, it was her image that took her from a talented singer to a tangible star. However, she and her team have remained extremely selective and methodical when it comes to what brands are worthy of the “Kehlani” stamp of approval.
In 2018, she aligned herself with the fast-fashion brand Fashion Nova. In an interview with DJ Booth, Elie Maroun laid out his involvement in bringing Kehlani to the clothing company.
When it comes to R&B artists like Kehlani, brand partnerships are a storytelling vessel. Similarly, fledgling brands who want to develop an emotional connection with audiences have no better place to go than to the audience of artists who wear their emotions on their sleeves, like R&B singers.
While you might not attract the number of eyes that Kehlani can with one post, you can leverage the relationship with your audience to get budgets from smaller brands and engage in valuable partnerships. Think about things like becoming the face of a brand for a year, or longer-term, IRL (in real life) partnerships that have you hosting activations, meet-and-greets, or parties.
REVERSE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
The best social media approach for an R&B artist looks like reverse curation. Amplify vulnerability, rather than opting for an overly formatted, calculated stream of content. Kehlani’s Twitter, for example, feels like she’s talking with a bunch of friends, only deeper. It’s almost as though she’s having multiple side conversations and consistently expressing where she’s at mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
This makes it both easy to create a community around her art as well as serves as a vessel to give her fans some sound advice. It’s a next-level social strategy because of how organic her interactions feel.
Even if you’re aiming to be the type of R&B artist that embodies a private mystique, wearing your emotions on your sleeve on social media helps to create an extra dimension of relatability to your art. Never force it, though. Find the amount of expression you’re comfortable with sharing and lean into it as you develop every aspect of your promotional strategies.
