Worst Behavior or Most Honest?

This song feels like a mating call. An anthem for the self-actualized, the ones who’ve met their true sensuality in the mirror and didn’t flinch.

Dear readers,

It’s 1:10 pm. “Worst Behavior” by Kehlani and KWN is playing softly in the background. I was mid-way through writing a fiction story when my brain froze and hit a creative wall. It happens sometimes. I love fiction: reading it and watching it, it pulls me into alternate dimensions. But writing it? That’s where it gets tricky. A part of me always wants to insert myself into the story somehow, to fix something, to leave my fingerprint behind. And in that urge, I realize just how deeply I see the human race as one connected puzzle. Move one piece, and suddenly the entire picture shifts. Everything else must rearrange itself. I would love to be an all rounded writer who can bring forth pieces that vary from one genre to the next. Even as I work towards that, I accept that I too have my strong suits and weak points.

I continue to observe fictional work, studying it, trying to understand what shapes I want my own pieces to take. Planting myself inside a story isn’t wrong. But when I can’t step away from the roots, the plot begins to tangle. Bias creeps in quietly. I start writing what I want to feel instead of what the character needs to live. And it happens almost every time. Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe I need to write fiction that strays far from my beliefs, stories that challenge me, stretch me, unrecognizable to my own reflection. Or maybe I should dive even deeper, write so close to my truth that the words force me to shed skin, layer by layer. Either way, I find myself constantly toeing the line. Too close, and I lose the story. Too far, and I lose myself.

Listening to worst behavior took me away from the piece that was fast becoming brain eating bacteria, into a different dimension. The audio is breathtaking in itself, but then I remembered there is a music video too, and so I quickly put it on. I begin to notice, because that’s what I do best. The music video is, different. If you’ve watched it, you know this.

At this point, a lot is going on in my mind, overstimulated in the best way. I’m watching how KWN (pronounced "kay-wuhn), fully owns her presence in the video. It’s like the lens exists solely to worship her.

The way she moves, shaking her shoulders like a Habibi from Ethiopia, I’m not mad at it. The camera pans from point to point with such discipline and intent. It’s almost like the cinematographer had a love affair with every second. As a visual artist, this is my wet dream: getting the right angles and capturing the best expressions from the muse. She is what one would comfortably call dandy.

Then comes the second scene, a stunning woman with loose, curly hair suspended in shibari. My breath catches. Instantly, I’m pulled back to my own days on set as a muse. That electric feeling, when you’re not just being looked at, but observed. It’s hard to explain unless you’ve ever truly embodied your sensual energy. It’s like being art and the artist at once. I start to wonder what she felt, watching herself on screen for the first time. Was she in awe? Did she shy away, flustered? Or did she lean in, turned on by her own power? Because honestly, I know I would be.

Then Kehlani steps in. And my first thought? They call you problematic because you keep owning your existence. Because you refuse to shrink. Because you take up space without apology. And suddenly, the room feels louder, fuller, braver.

I try, I really do, to avoid forming opinions about celebrities. I don’t know them personally. I only meet the versions they curate for the world. And the whole “separate the art from the artist” conversation? It’s complicated. Nuanced. A privilege, even. It doesn’t apply to everyone, and it certainly doesn’t sit the same in every context. Some art is too tethered to the soul of its creator to be peeled apart cleanly.

Sure, she’s had her fair share of scandals swirling around her name. Public scrutiny. Missteps. Moments the internet refuses to let die. But to me? She will always be my authentic freedom awakening. The reminder that self-expression doesn’t need permission. That softness and strength can coexist. And that being yourself will always ruffle feathers. That part is locked in.

And the music? Yeah. She’s got it too.

I look at Kehlani and her appeal sends a quiet shiver down my spine. Not the loud or performative kind, but the kind that lingers. The kind that feels like energy. For the longest time, I’ve always thought fame itself is seductive. That people damn near audition to be in that category for the promise of being desired, touched by the gaze of strangers, and finally validated. As if the only real currency of visibility is sex. You scan the faces society has crowned with fame and the pattern jumps out: lethal levels of attractiveness, and eroticism wrapped up so neatly it almost feels manufactured. Beauty gets you through the door, desire is the receipt that proves you belong. Of course there are isolated cases where it’s personality that pulls people in; and honestly if you ask me, that kind of allure lasts a lot longer.

But I’ll be honest, if attention didn’t come with that electric possibility of intimacy, fame would matter even less to me. Applause alone has never fed my spirit. My art reaching the people it needs to? Making impact? That matters. But being unhealthily worshipped? Absolutely not. I’ve always believed that no truly grounded person wants to be placed on a pedestal. Worship is a lonely throne. Anyone who craves constant elevation is often someone still searching for substance. When your gift is natural, effortless, something you breathe rather than perform, you rarely fall in love with the spotlight it brings. You respect it, maybe, but you don’t kneel before it.

Once you start to notice, you can’t unsee it. The different kinds of artists that exist. The ones who create from overflow, and the ones who perform from hunger. The ones who are rooted, and the ones still chasing their reflection in the crowd. And needless to say, artists who reach certain heights are constantly sexualized; they are stretched thin between fantasy and expectation. They’re held to impossible standards, asked to be both sacred and consumable, human yet untouchable. Idolized, but never truly known. That, honestly, is a whole other essay waiting to be written. Money, power, and sex: the holy trinity of human depravity. But for now, let’s place a pin in it.

So yes, Kehlani is enchanting, no debate there. But beyond that, I’m in awe of her many selves. The way she shapeshifts. Fluid. Uncontained. Unbothered. Her erotic presence doesn’t choose a lane, it lives on a spectrum, and she claims every shade like it’s hers by birthright. Masculine. Feminine. Somewhere in between. Somewhere beyond language. She moves through all of it with ease, with intention, with grace. Like jeez okay! Who is she? In fact… who isn’t she?

There’s the beat, slow and deliberate, and those quiet moans that ripple through the background as the song continues to play. It is soft and suggestive, like a secret slipping past someone’s lips. I start to wonder about the producer too. What mind sat in that studio, layering these sounds so intentionally? I like it when people sit in a studio and make good stuff! The kind that grips your spine and slides down your skin. This song feels like a mating call. An anthem for the self-actualized, the ones who’ve met their true sensuality in the mirror and didn’t flinch. People who aren't afraid of burning desire, of being seen, of saying yes, I want.

There’s a thing Kaywuhn and Kehlani do with their eyes. Hypnotic. Magnetic. Unapologetic. I genuinely can’t look away. It’s as if the camera isn’t just a prop, it’s a person they’re seducing: Me, basically. Their energy reaches through the screen like fingertips lifting my chin. They don’t even have to try, I’m already paying attention. Fully locked in. I like it. They knew exactly what they were doing. This is an A-star concept. Executed with surgical precision.

So then, I’m on my fourth watch of the video. She pulls KWN close to her mouth, and something in me short-circuits. The intimacy, the precision, the restraint before the fire. I can’t help but wonder what their chemistry was like on set. Something so perfectly executed it turns you into a voyeur, caught between admiration and disbelief. Was it natural? Was it built? Did the air between takes feel charged, or did they laugh it off like professionals do? I read somewhere that they shot the video in one uninterrupted shot. How perfectionist then. How deliberate. It makes me think: did they have unfinished business? Were therelingering feelings wrapped in choreography? Or are they simply the kind of colleagues who understand tension, how to create it, hold it, and never let it spill? It sure does take a certain kind of person to achieve that kind of clean-cut professionalism. Otherwise, that kind of heat doesn’t just evaporate, someone would be knocking on someone’s dressing room.

At this point, I’m probably milking every milkable detail in the concept video. The hand placement. The breathing. The eye contact, so locked in it borders on telepathy. There’s no faking that. I whisper to myself, “I wouldn’t know how to behave if someone ever matched my energy to that level of perfection.” No exaggeration, my atoms would scatter. That kind of sync. That kind of intimacy. It’s not just performance. It’s poetry.

Have they unlocked that level of sensuality because millions are watching? Or is it just in them, woven into their being like muscle memory? It’s easy to want to dissect something I’ve never experienced, but the truth is I don’t have the facts. Does fame crack something open? Does it give you permission to stop hiding? Does it give you the kind of license that lets you explore and be, without second-guessing every glance, and every movement? Or is this simply just a level of self freedom one simply unlocks in their own divine timing, if we ever do?

But then I remember, queerness (being different), breathes more freely outside Africa. Over here, it’s still holding its breath. Tucking itself in carefully. Side-eyeing every onlooker. I sulk a little. Some of us could have arrived at our true selves so much earlier if we’d been given room to land.

A lot of things are still frowned upon in Africa, Kenya especially. I wish I could say I don’t care, that I’ve built up some solid wall of resistance. But that’d be a lie. The truth? I dance between not caring and caring just enough to flinch. It’s a delicate shuffle, this back-and-forth between rebellion and restraint. And sometimes, I catch myself imagining a different life. One where I relocated to the so-called ‘free world’ early enough to stretch out, explore without fear, and without performance. By sixteen, I’d have probably known myself better. Bolder at a time it truly mattered. Daring enough to challenge every hobby, every curiosity, without the ever-looming voice of culture breathing down my neck.

I think I’d thrive. I’d still be in the art scene, not a household name, maybe, but leaving whispers in rooms I hadn’t even stepped into yet. A chain of tattoos would wrap around my body like a map of everything I’ve survived and everything I still desire. My hair? Loud, unapologetic, still sacred. I’d have launched a women’s campaign boldly inviting us to reclaim our sensuality, to inhabit our bodies without shame. And travel? Travel would be inseparable from me, passport pages stained with stories, airports feeling like second homes.

But all this… it’s fictional. A shimmering could-be. Tastes real in your mouth, slips away if you try to hold it too tight. Because truthfully, I don’t know if any of it would’ve actually happened. What I do know is I’m here. In Nairobi. The city I have a stubborn, complicated, deeply entangled love-hate relationship with. A city that hugs and chokes in the same breath. Could I thrive here too? Sure. But it’s a decision I have to make boldly, deliberately.

So I continue. The final scene unfolds. KWN and Kehlani share a moment on each other’s lips, and just like that, something ignites inside me. Not lust for them individually, but for the alchemy between them. That rare, magnetic chemistry that grabs you by the throat and then presses a gentle kiss to your forehead.

There’s a particular kind of interaction I’ve been craving all my life, and somehow, they hold up a mirror, showing me what it could look like. It’s not mere attraction. It’s yearning. Freedom. Burning desire so potent it doesn’t need a single word to speak. If a thermometer were nearby, the room would be off the charts.

I bite my finger as I observe it unfold. Half in awe, half in ache. I tell myself I’m not alone in what I’m feeling. I can’t be. Because the way they melt into that energy, so comfortable, so unapologetic, it’s hypnotic chile! I don’t want to interrupt. I just want to witness. Silently. Devotedly. If roles were being assigned, I’d want to be their chosen voyeur: a clipboard in hand, eyes wide open and taking notes. The online hive mind call this ‘being a fly on the wall.’

Did they practice the kiss? Rehearse how they’d feel each other’s touch? Or is this just… them? Because it feels like them. It moves like something rooted, not staged. I look at the screen, searching for cracks, there’s none. That’s not acting. That’s chemistry with a pulse. Is it really Worst Behavior, or is it the most honest behavior we’ve ever been allowed to witness? It’s sickening, honestly. The kind of sick you don’t want to be cured from. I am hopelessly obsessed with the energy they exude. How contained it is, yet leaking through every frame.

There’s a car behind them: sleek, black, brooding. Sexy in its own right. Sitting there like a third character, quiet but complicit. The lighting is low, moody and sinful, exactly how I like it. The entire set is stripped down, no distractions. Just them. Their presence. Their breath. Their heat. And it works. The simplicity forces you to pay attention. Not just watch, but witness.

And then I ask myself: how do I still manage to hide parts of myself sometimes? What trick of the mind lets me play that tired game? Because that narrative falls apart the moment I look at people who exist so fluidly through life. Kehlani and the likes!

Because here she is, existing fully and freely in three different worlds at once. The Kehlani in ‘Ur Best Friend’ is tender and aching. The one in ‘Nights Like This’ is wounded and wondering. And the one in ‘Worst Behavior’? She’s bold, erotic, and in command. And yet, she doesn’t disappear between personas. She isn’t scattered. She’s whole. She doesn’t choose, she owns them all.

It sent me spiraling, softly, into that fictional haven where I imagined who I’d be if I just allowed myself to become. To exist without the noise, without the editing, without the guilt. A self untouched by shame or explanation. I thought of the freedom in that. The fullness.

Boxes, I’ve come to realize, exist to comfort people who fear expansion. People who don’t want to stretch beyond the corners of their minds. People who can’t see the fiction they’re already living. But not me. I’d hate to die rigid. Tidy. Explained. I want to melt, shape-shift, and embody every possible energy created out there for me to find. Whether I understand it yet or not.

Seven watches. I’ve sat through the music video seven times, just observing. Letting it pull me deeper, letting it rearrange something inside me. And now, I’m left with a new perspective on fiction. A new kind of clarity. Just because I can’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And maybe, just maybe, writing it into the world makes it real for someone else. For someone who’s never seen it either, but has always felt it in their bones. It doesn’t matter if I platform myself in the story, so long as I make it so raw and real that it leaves someone else as undone as they left me.

That’s the quiet magic of fiction: it makes space for the invisible. It dares to build worlds that feel impossible, until they’re not. What we imagine doesn’t just stay imagined. It becomes real. For someone. Somewhere.

From, Letters by Joy.

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