Kehlani Ashley Parrish

Kehlani Ashley Parrish was born on April 24, 1995 in Oakland, California, United States where she was raised by her aunt. Her mother was a drug addict who moved in and out of the prison while her father died months after her birth. Kehlani went through extreme poverty during her early days. She attended Oakland School of the Arts and studied ballet and modern dance there. She initially wanted to become a dancer but a knee injury prevented her from making a career as a ballerina. Eventually she started focussing on music. Coming to her love life, she dated Cleveland Cavaliers’ NBA point guard Kyrie Irving in 2016.

Kehlani began her singing career as a member and lead vocalist of the band Poplyfe. After performing from city to city for two years, the band gave the audition for ‘America's Got Talent’ (sixth season) and became one of the semi-finalists of the show. After this, Kehlani left the group because of several disputes. Between the years 2012 and 2013, she was completely homeless and moved from house to house. While in high school she moved to California and after this, she was invited by Nick Cannon (host of ‘America's Got Talent’) for being a part of a rap group. Although she agreed at first, later on she came back to Oakland after she didn’t like the direction of the rap group.

A few months later, the budding singer released her first solo ‘ANTISUMMERLUV’ on SoundCloud. Cannon listened to her song, called her back and gave her an apartment in Los Angeles along with studio time that eventually led to the release of Kehlani’s first mixtape ‘Cloud 19’. This mixtape peaked at #28 on Complex's list of ‘50 Best Albums of 2014’. Soon after this mixtape, the American singer released the song ’Till the Morning’ that got the title of one of the ‘Emerging Picks of the Week’.

In 2015, Kehlani’s second mixtape titled ‘You Should Be Here’ was released. This mixtape was ranked # 5 on US Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. The success of the mixtapes brought a golden opportunity for the singer and she got signed to Atlantic Records. Her career on the rise, she earned several individual plaudits throughout the year 2015. While ‘Rolling Stone’ called her one of the ‘Ten New Artists You Need to Know’, ‘Complex’ named her one of the ‘Fifteen Artists to Watch Out for in 2015’. Besides this, she was nominated for the 2016 Grammy Award under the category ‘Best Urban Contemporary Album’.

In 2016, Kehlani joined hands with singer-songwriter Zayn and released the track ‘Wrong’ that was taken from the latter’s debut album. After this, she released her track ‘Gangsta’ for the film ‘Suicide Squad’. This ultimately gave the singer some beneficial recognition as the song debuted at #41 on the Hot 100 chart. On January 27, 2017, Kehlani released her debut album named ‘SweetSexySavage’ on Atlantic Records.

In 2016, musician PartyNextDoor uploaded a picture of Kehlani's hand on a social media channel and insinuated that he was involved with the singer. This dragged Kehlani—who was then known to be dating Kyrie Irving—into a controversy and she was abused through thousands of posts. The matter worsened when the media played a negative role which eventually made Kehlani attempt suicide. The American singer then took to the social media and explained that she didn’t cheat on Irving.