Take Kehlani to Starbucks, gift her either a White Chocolate Mocha or Vanilla Beam with caramel and she’ll be happy. Simple, to the point and a fiery ball of energy, the Oakland native has a weighted opinion on what we call R&B music today.

“What R&B? It’s futuristic R&B and there’s only key people doing it correctly but if you listen to them it is 90’s R&B. From vocal styling to lyrics, perfect example of that is PARTYNEXTDOOR,” she explains over the music in a SoHo Starbucks. “My shit won’t even be considered spot-on R&B. It’s R&B with a pop influence, with an alternative influence, with a house/dance influence. There’s many aspects to it because I play around with myself but I can honestly say I don’t hear anyone doing R&B.”

The songstress is adjusting to her new soaring levels of fame, juggling the switch-up from friends and associates who used to be comfortable texting her. “It’s like simple things from people who used to casually hit me up, never tweet me to tweeting me ‘remember when etc.’ or ‘@kehlani used to etc.’ or ‘what you doing today?’ You could’ve texted that to my phone, you didn’t have to tweet me,” she said.

Find out who Kehlani would tap as a feature for a “How That Taste” remix and what bizarre animal she would be in the following pages. – Alley Olivier