Kehlani: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

It’s early afternoon on a sizzling, sticky late-July day in the hills of Topanga Canyon, high above the stretch of the storied Pacific Coast Highway that connects Santa Monica, Calif., with Malibu. But there’s a different type of warmth inside the orange-curtained cottage on this quiet, bucolic property, where a reunion between two longtime friends and collaborators is about to begin.

Kehlani and Leon Thomas — two of the hottest artists in R&B right now — immediately hug. “I get to do this with someone I actually know and love,” Kehlani says with a wide smile. Clearly relishing his role today as musician-turned-journalist, Thomas notes, “I’m doing an interview with fam so here we are. I feel like a young Bryant Gumbel.” They both burst into laughter. “Oh, you stoked,” Kehlani says. “They gave this man a mic!”