Leven Kali doesn’t just return with LK99: The Prelude—he detonates it. The six-track EP, his first project in three years, feels like a sonic lucid dream where R&B collides with funk, rock, and psychedelia. Released via Def Jam on June 27, this record isn’t chasing trends—it’s building a world.
The opening track, “Blackrock,” kicks things off with cosmic ambition. It’s a mind-bending swirl of paranoia and passion, where Kali questions reality, love, and surveillance in the same breath. “The CIA already got your mind… It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a face, it’s a lie,” he sings, unspooling lines that sound like stream-of-consciousness poetry trapped in a dystopian slow jam. It’s both surreal and urgent—like a warning wrapped in velvet.
“In The End” brings that tension inward, offering a tender, almost spiritual reprieve. Leven Kali’s voice is warm and open as he sings, “Come over, I’ll hold you / You need a break from all those lies…”—a line that might sound cliché in another artist’s hands but lands with weight here, because he earns it. The track aches with empathy.
The rest of the EP keeps things equally rich. Previously released singles “Are U Still,” “Crystal Ball,” “Pieces,” and “Sleepwalking” all sit comfortably in Kali’s kaleidoscopic universe. “Crystal Ball” is a standout: catchy but left-of-center, slick but unbothered by polish. He knows how to glide without rushing, and how to make unpredictability feel smooth.
Across LK99: The Prelude, what impresses most is how cohesive this chaos sounds. Leven Kali’s vision doesn’t feel like a collage—it’s a system. And even when it gets weird (which it often does), it’s deliberate. His influences are apparent—Prince, D’Angelo, Frank Ocean—but they’re not leaned on. They’re absorbed and refracted.
After co-writing Beyoncé tracks on both Renaissance and Cowboy Carter, including the ultra-slick “Plastic Off the Sofa” and the kinetic “Bodyguard,” it’s clear Leven Kali is a behind-the-scenes force. But this EP suggests it’s time he takes more of the foreground. There’s no reason LK99: The Prelude should be a prelude at all—it feels like a headliner.
