Kehlani’s Daughter Gets Star to Spill New Album Details, Talk Cardi B Friendship: ‘She Knows How to Be Herself All the Time’

Sometimes the easiest way to get news out of your mom is to set up a multi-camera shoot and ask the important questions on camera. At least that’s the tactic Kehlani‘s five-year-old daughter, Adeya Nomi Parrish Young-White (aka “Bear”) took when she sat down for a Billboard Family chat with the “You Know Wassup” singer.

Adeya got right to work, asking Kehlani how they cooked up their first top 10 hit on Billboard‘s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs list earlier this summer with “Folded,” which ran up to No. 9 on the list while also peaking at No. 18 on the Hot 100 singles chart. “I was working with my friends. I was in Miami on a work trip and I heard the beat and I loved the beat and so I took it in a room and me and [some collaborators] made the song together,” the singer explained in the video interview you can watch in full above.

Not content with simple answers, Adeya pressed heard, asking her mom why they wanted to release the song in the first place.

“I just really thought it was a really cool way to come back into music after I hadn’t put music out for a while,” said Kehlani. “I was pretty confident about it. I thought it was a good song,” turning things around on Adeya and asking if she likes the song, with the kindergartner giving a very emphatic yes.

Adeya was also curious about the viral TikTok challenge that the song spawned, as well as Brandy dropping an impromptu version of the song in September, in which she added some of her signature vocal power to the track by her “little sister.” Kehlani said it was “really crazy” to have their absolute favorite vocalist cover their song, counseling Adeya that one day when she’s grown she’ll realize that Brandy is her favorite as well.

The chat also touched on the best part of Kehlani’s job, her favorite singers growing up (Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, India.Arie), what it was like meeting Janet Jackson and why it is fun being friends with Cardi B.

“She’s really herself and she knows how to be herself all the time,” Kehlani said of the the rapper, whose 2018 song “Ring” they jumped on; they also appear on “Safe” from Cardi’s new album, Am I the Drama? “And she’s not afraid of what the world is going to say about her being herself. And she just makes you want to root for her because she’s really loving and she doesn’t care what anybody thinks and I think we could all use a little bit of that,” Kehlani said.

The interview ended with Adeya doing what every good reporter does: squeezing some breaking news out of her subject. “You know I have more new music coming because you helped me make it,” Kehlani said, referring to their daughter as the unnamed project’s “creative director.”

Kehlani and Adeya did a “new album dance” when the singer promised that the follow-up to their 2024 Crash LP is due out in 2026. At press time no additional information was available on the unnamed album.