Kehlani released her latest album blue water road a bit over a month ago and I listened to it attentively, did my little shopping and ended up adding a couple of tracks to my own playlists. One of them was an instant favorite: melt. As it turns out, it’s also Kehlani’s personal favorite and she decided to give it the single treatment.
I’m a firm believer that 1+1=2 so technically, this song should have come across as way too cheesy for me. Yet, hearing her sing “Wish you could build me a cute apartment, one bedroom right where your heart is” really pulled at my heartstrings and that’s precisely when I knew that melt would never leave me. Look, two bedrooms is a must for me (not to sleep apart but because I need my own little space for work and other introspective moments) but I agree with Kehlani’s idea: home is anywhere that feels like love. And this song feels like home. Blue and tender. Peaceful. A safe place. Don’t even get me started on these beautiful strings that come and go like waves. Or on the way her run at the end of the second verse literally melt into the chorus. “Once I unlocked the code that I wasn’t loving from the place that I thought that I was when I was dating all genders… Then when I started dating exclusively women, that just made everything so much deeper and more intense, Kehlani confides in the episode 2 of the blue water road trip documentary. It definitely reflects in the music because I’m listening back to the love songs and I’m saying some insanely, deeply romantic stuff! It’s not just like ‘OMG, I love you so much!’ but it’s an ‘I wanna melt inside of you’ type of thing. (…) I really wanted to describe the feeling when… you know, someone is like ‘I just wanna live in your skin!’. You’re so close with someone that you really can’t even embrace each other any tighter or you’ll just melt into one person. [At the time] I was idealizing how I felt and now that I kind of feel like I actually am feeling the love that I wrote about… it’s like I actually manifested it! So now, when I hear ‘melt’, it’s completely different than how I heard it when I made it.”
Adding to its charm, the ballad comes with an intimate music video beautifully shot by Gabe Phoenix in São Paulo, Brazil and self-directed by Kehlani alongside 070 Shake. Labelled as “a true story” on the songstress’ Instagram, the visuals seem to officialize her rumored relationship with the rapper, sharing these mundane, everyday moments that also make what love is.
Needless to say that melt has already found its way at the top of the latest update of my Summer Breeze playlist. Make sure to follow it because more gems will come throughout the sunny season!
