K. Michelle - KIMBERLY: The People I Used to Know (2017)

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K. Michelle - KIMBERLY: The People I Used to Know (2017)

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K. Michelle is never one to mince words. With the arrival of “Birthday,” the club-ready first offering from her upcoming fourth album Kimberly: The People I Used to Know, the Memphis, Tenn. native enters yet another chapter of her career, this time more honest than before. The LP, which features contributions from Chris Brown (“Either Way”), Jeremih, Yo Gotti and Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, mines directly from her personal life and those around her, something that isn’t necessarily new for the R&B singer but continues to give her motivation to make more honest music. “I always say people use us for some things: men might use us for our hot pockets, women might use us just to be cool with us or whatever,” says the singer, born Kimberly Pate. “But whatever the person that’s using you, you should use them to learn something.”

For K. Michelle, nothing is off limits, including past relationships – she sang about her alleged ill-fated tryst with Idris Elba on 2014’s “Maybe I Should Call” and “controlling” relationship with R. Kelly on “Build a Man.” That honesty carries over to Kimberly, one of two albums she has left on her contract with Atlantic Records. After that? A country album, as well as a possible return to television after she announced her departure after the third season of K. Michelle: My Life aired on VH1 through Feb. 2017.