Our blurbs unfold onto your screen…
[Video]
[6.86]
Andrew Karpan: The unnamed, unfolded clothes at the center of this self-consciously old-fashioned R&B riff have an ambient energy that vibrates like the slight double entendre of “fold.” Kehlani’s voice, modern and forceful, continues to straddle the ambivalence that songs of theirs generally have: dispatches from the liminal doorway between hope and heartbreak and leftover fantasies of domesticity.
[7]
Alfred Soto: The conceit — his clothes folded and pressed awaiting his attention — is simplicity itself, hence why no one has hatched a song out of it (Jazmine Sullivan might’ve written it). No one but Kehlani with their un-maudlin yearning could’ve fleshed it out.
[8]
Julian Axelrod: As someone who likes Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” and loves folding laundry, this should be my favorite song. But even after two listens, I could name every Kehlani media controversy from the past few years but couldn’t tell you how this song goes.
[5]
Katherine St. Asaph: It’s dangerous territory when your single sounds this much like the superior-to-most “Confessions, Pt. II.”
[4]
Nortey Dowuona: DK the Punisher supremacy.
[8]
Tim de Reuse: It takes confidence to sing over a dinky little beat so simple that your voice has to fill up most of the space in the room. It takes further confidence to deliver lyrics that hinge on the past participle of a thoroughly unremarkable verb. On the first count, they run circles around that stringy guitar hook, layering their voice on top of itself in dazzling, overlapping runs; on the second count, they manage to imbue the concept of folding an ex’s laundry with a degree of pathos I never thought possible.
[8]
Ian Mathers: It is actually genius to make “Folded” so multi-purpose; when you kick someone to the curb you can focus on parts of the song and feel strong about your decision, and then when/if the “I should call them” mood strikes you can start listening to the rest of the lyrics so that probably bad decision sounds hot as hell.
[8]