Kehlani Honors Sex Workers in "Can I" Quarantine Style Music Video
The songstress will be removing Tory Lanez’s verse in her upcoming deluxe album.
Following her recent visuals for “Bad News,” “Open (Passionate),” “F&MU,” “Everybody Business” and “TOXIC,” Kehlani has released another quarantine style music video for her track “Can I” off of her latest album, It Was Good Until It Wasn’t. Directed by Hyphy Williams, the webcam-inspired shoot is an “ode to sex work. Honoring sex workers. Uplifting their movement,” the R&B songstress explained to fans on Twitter.
The original version of the song features Tory Lanez, but since his recent arrest after Megan Thee Stallion‘s traumatic shooting incident, Kehlani decided to exclude Lanez from the video. Additionally, she has announced that she won’t be including the rapper in her upcoming deluxe album. “Full transparency cuz i believe in that with my following, his verse is still on the song, the video is solo. new verse on the deluxe,” she tweeted.
The visual ends with a statement from Wear Your Voice‘s Associate Editor Da’Shaun Harrison that reads:
“SEX WORK is a political term that covers and embraces: street-level prostitution, erotic dancing, camera work, adult film, agency escorting, sensual messages, dominatrix work, and all other occupations through which one sells their sexual(-ized) services to clients. 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. Overwhelmingly, those folks are Black trans women, Black cisgender women, and other Black 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.”
Watch the full quarantine music video above and stream the track below.