Kehlani has released her new video for “Can I,” off of her recent sophomore album It Was Good Until It Wasn’t.
The visual concludes with a PSA written by Kehlani’s friend, magazine editor, and abolitionist organizer Da’Shaun Harrison.
“Sex work is a political term that covers and embraces: street-level prostitution, erotic dancing, camera work, adult film, agency escorting, sensual massages, dominatrix work, and all other occupations through which one sells their sexual(-ized) services to clients,” Harrison writes. “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.”
continuing with “Overwhelmingly, those folks are clack trans women, clack cisgender women, and other clack 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.”
Directed by Sebastian Sdaigui and Hyphy Williams (a.k.a. Kehlani’s director name), the clip co-stars Lily Isabella, Tori Duncan, Aaliyah Ei, Zamara Fullilove and Draya Logan as the video follows a cadre of cam-girls moving through rains of cash falling.
The video for “Can I” plays with the expanding popularity of content-sharing sites like OnlyFans. As Kehlani browses a webcam-esque site, showing love to the women whose videos she comes across. As the precautionary coronavirus lockdown affected average folks’ jobs. More exceeding women found sites such as these to be a valid option for income, leading to heightened acceptance — at least on social media.
As far as Tory Lanez and his verse on this track. Kehlani stated via twitter that his verse would be removed from the deluxe version of the album as a response to Tory allegedly shooting Megan Thee Stallion.
Check out all the hype on Kehlani’s new video below.
