There are two types of teenagers: those who think they know everything, and those who realize they have no clue about anything. The eternally laid-back pop-R&B singer-songwriter Khalid spent his high school years in the latter camp. Five years ago today—on March 3, 2017—the then-19-year-old released his full-length debut, American Teen, an album about being a confused young person riding around in cars and getting your heart smashed to bits.
At the time, Khalid was living in El Paso, the latest in a long line of places he’d called home. Khalid’s parents were in the military, and he grew up in Georgia, Kentucky, Germany, and New York before moving to Texas for his senior year of high school. Khalid had seen a lot more of the world than his classmates, and that comes across on American Teen. Even though he sings about being young, dumb, and broke—most effectively on the song “Young Dumb & Broke”—Khalid sounds calm and paradoxically wise, like he knows all of this will pass.
American Teen peaked inside the Top 5 of the Billboard 200, spawned a pair of Top 20 singles, and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Urban Contemporary Album. There were evidently a lot of people—some real-deal teens, others nostalgic oldsters—relating to Khalid’s tales of young folks bumming each other out. One of Khalid’s most vocal early fans was Kylie Jenner, who played his debut single, “Location,” on her Snapchat story in May 2016, eight months before the album dropped. It was a hell of a graduation present for Khalid, who was then wrapping up his senior year. No wonder dude won prom king.
“Location” is the quintessential Khalid song. With its light kick-drum thumps and finger-snap snares, it’s almost too mellow and skeletal to register as any particular genre. On top, Khalid croons in his signature chillaxed drawl about using his smartphone to facilitate in-person conversation—not to simply flirt via subtweets. Khalid craves genuine human connection with the person he’s dating, only he can’t figure out whether they’re actually dating. The other person can’t either. Khalid spells it out in the first verse.
At times I wonder why I fool with you
But this is new to me, this is new to you
“I was only in like two relationships,” Khalid told Genius in 2017, thinking back on the circumstances that inspired the lyrics. “She’s never been in a relationship in her whole entire life, so it was like, ‘Do we keep going without being in a relationship or do we give each other the title?’ It’s like, why do I fool with you? We have no title. No one really knows that we’re talking but fuck it, I guess we’ll just keep talking.”
Elsewhere on American Teen, Khalid decides to stop worrying about his adolescent confusion and simply enjoy himself. On the chorus of the atypically propulsive title track, which opens the album, Khalid fully owns the contradictions and conflicting emotions that characterize his life and the lives of his friends.
We don’t always say what we mean
That’s the lie of an American teen
“We’re still young, and our opinions are constantly changing,” Khalid told Genius. “We haven’t even found ourselves as individuals yet; we’re in the process of finding ourselves. Some people maybe think they’ve got it. But we don’t. We don’t have all our shit together.”
One of the best things about being a teenager is that you don’t need to have everything figured out. Certainly not when it comes to dating. Whereas relationships take on serious weight in adulthood, when people start thinking about marriage and kids, teen love doesn’t have to lead anywhere. Khalid celebrates this fact on “Young Dumb & Broke,” which became the album’s second big single, after “Location.”
What’s fun about commitment?
When we have our life to live
Yeah, we’re just young dumb and broke
But we still got love to give
“High school sweethearts don’t necessarily last forever,” Khalid told Genius. “So I was just saying, like, ‘What’s fun about commitment?’ Why do I have to commit myself to anything right now? When I’m young. I have all of my life to find love, permanent love.”
Of course, high school romance can feel very high stakes. On “Another Sad Love Song”—not to be confused with the 1993 Toni Braxton classic of the same name—Khalid tries to capture the feeling of the car ride you take right after you’ve had your heart ripped out for the first time. “It’s kind of like grief,” Khalid told Genius, and indeed, there’s a sense of finality in his chorus.
Bridges they are burning
Lover, I am worried
Tables they are turning
It wouldn’t be an honest album about teen life if Khalid didn’t at least touch on drugs. He does so on “Therapy,” though things never spiral into Euphoria territory. He remains mostly concerned with matters of the heart.
Something that you’re doing has me falling all the way
I’m tripping off your love and all the other drugs we taking
“When I was writing this album, I really wanted it to be authentic to what I’ve seen—not necessarily what I’ve been through,” Khalid said. “[“Therapy”] is about addiction. A lot of people who I was friends with, I saw them doing that through drugs. They felt like drugs are supposed to make them happy. And I saw a lot of people get addicted to the relationships they were in.”
For an artist so closely identified with high school, Khalid has managed to keep his career going strong into his 20s. His 2019 sophomore album, Free Spirit, reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and yielded a pair of Top 10 singles: “Better” (originally released on Khalid’s 2018 EP Sun City) and “Talk,” a classic Khalid-ian plea for communication, this time featuring the U.K. electronic duo Disclosure.
Khalid has also fared well as a guest. He joined Alessia Cara on Logic’s Top 5 anti-suicide anthem “1-800-273-8255” and scored Top 10 hits via collabs with Normani (“Love Lies”) and benny blanco and Halsey (“Eastside”). Khalid’s smooth, unobtrusive sound fits comfortably on many kinds of playlists—which might explain why he’s got 43 million monthly Spotify listeners.
Last summer, Khalid announced his third album, Everything Is Changing, which he said centers on “trying to find a purpose and a sense of self in a world where everything is digitally connected but emotionally disconnected.” It was inspired by something arguably even more terrifying than high school: the pandemic.
Check out all the lyrics to Khalid’s ‘American Teen’ on Genius now.
