Khalid attempts to circumvent the problem by looking inward: his love life is no longer in turmoil because of the lack of interest in commitment depicted on his hit Young, Dumb & Broke, but because he’s too busy. If you’ve risen to fame by documenting everyday teenage life, what are you going to write about when you’re patently not an everyday teenager any more, but the world’s second most-streamed pop star, who’s been garlanded with awards and just made his own feature film? How do you remain #relatable when you live a life your fans can’t hope to #relate to?
But it also leaves Free Spirit with a familiar problem. Big enough to have attracted a host of more celebrated producers and collaborators than his debut – Disclosure, John Mayer and Norwegian hit factory Stargate are among them – and indeed, big enough that his label has forked out for him to make a short feature film to go with it. His popularity makes his second album a big deal.
His lyrics deftly picked at the tribulations of adolescent life, from subtweeting to faking drunkenness at parties to the perils of trying to pursue adulthood while still living with your parents. Eighteen when his first single, Location, was released, Khalid’s songs seemed to offer an authentic voice, both literally – his default vocal setting is a nonchalant mumble, as if singing while checking his Instagram feed – and figuratively.
Now it exists in a realm where success isn’t necessarily reflected in anything as last-century as chart placings: Khalid’s debut album, American Teen, stalled outside the UK Top 40, none of his solo singles have ever cracked the Top 10, and yet he still sold out two nights at London’s 5,000-capacity Hammersmith Apollo. It’s been powered by social media rather than traditional methods of promotion – it wasn’t until celebrities including Kendall and Kylie Jenner shared Snapchats of themselves listening to his music that his career really took off. Like that of his sometime collaborator Billie Eilish, Khalid’s is a very Generation Z kind of success.
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