Kehlani Debuts New "Can I" Video, Announces She's Removing Tory Lanez Feature

Kehlani‘s entire 2020 output has been inspired by the coronavirus quarantines and she’s been one of the first major artists to adapt to the times with self-edited “Quarantine Style” music videos. Her album cover for her latest project It Was Good Until It Wasn’t (one of HYPEBEAST’s “25 Best Albums of 2020… So Far”) is even an image of her looking over her backyard wall as if waiting to escape the confines of her home and return to normalcy.

Today Kehlani is back with a new music video for “Can I” and Tory Lanez‘s verse is noticeably absent. “Full transparency cuz I believe in that with my following, his verse is still on the song, the video is solo. New verse on the deluxe,” she revealed. Kehlani’s distancing from Lanez occurs after a recent altercation in which he was arrested by police and Megan Thee Stallion was rushed to the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds. While speculation has continued, it’s still unknown what role Tory played in that situation.

As for the visual, Kehlani reconnects with director Hyphy Williams for a sensual webcam based homage to sex workers. She took to Twitter to reveal that the video “is a ode to sex work. Honoring sex workers. Uplifting their movement. That’s it.” Unlike her past efforts (“F&MU” or her first isolated visual for “Toxic”) the camera quality has upgraded and cuts between different sex workers on livestream dancing. The video ends with a statement from Da’Shaun Harrison that reads:

SEX WORK is a political term that covers and embraces: street-level prostitution, erotic dancing, camera work, adult film, agency escorting, sensual messages, dominatrix work, and all other occupations through which one sells their sexual(-ized) services to clients. It is a legitimate form of labor that must be decriminalized so as to function as a safe form of work for all sex workers. It is often the lives and livelihoods of those who do street-level work that is impacted by criminalizing policies and cultural stigmatization. Overwhelmingly, those folks are Black trans women, Black cisgender women, and other Black queer and trans people—including youth. Black people—as well as Indigenous people and other people of color—deserve to be able to perform sex work without any limitations or stigmas attached, and this means that everyone must commit to learning from sex workers about sex work and sex workers’ needs.

Watch the full “Can I” music video above and stay tuned for Kehlani’s deluxe edition to drop in the near future. In more music news, DaBaby teased his own deluxe album with a new single “PEEP HOLE.”

our video is a ode to sex work. honoring sex workers. uplifting their movement. that’s it.

— Kehlani (@Kehlani) July 30, 2020

full transparency cuz i believe in that with my following,
his verse is still on the song, the video is solo. new verse on the deluxe.
💯

— Kehlani (@Kehlani) July 30, 2020

working on this deluxe for y’all. 🧡

— Kehlani (@Kehlani) July 29, 2020