Khalid

In 2016, Khalid Robinson was voted Most Likely to Go Platinum by his high school class. About a year later, he proved them right. A military kid, Robinson split his childhood between Georgia, Kentucky, upstate New York, and Heidelberg, Germany, eventually settling in El Paso, Texas—a pattern of dislocation that often made him feel like an outsider. A self-described “awkward teen,” he picked up songwriting primarily to stave off loneliness, sharing music through SoundCloud and quickly catching the ears of both his peers and the industry with tracks like the 2016 breakout single, “Location.” In 2017, he released American Teen, a celebratory but bittersweet mix of synth-pop and neon-lit R&B that garnered two Grammy nominations—proof that you’re rarely an outsider alone. In between, Robinson featured on high-profile collaborations with Logic (“1-800-273-8255”), Calvin Harris (“Rollin”), and Normani (“Love Lies”), among others. An EP, Suncity, arrived in late 2018, opening with audio of Khalid being given the key to the city of El Paso—not bad for a kid who’d moved there only a few years before. He followed that up with 2019’s soulful, creatively unbounded Free Spirit, on which he charted new emotional terrain with a strong focus on his well-being. More singles—including a contribution to Barbie The Album (“Silver Platter”)—and his third album, 2024’s Sincere, followed. In 2025, Khalid transformed a negative (being outed on social media by a former boyfriend) into a positive: the freedom to express himself more authentically as an artist. He marked this new chapter in both his life and his career with his fourth studio album, after the sun goes down. The record unlocked a more dance-floor-oriented sound, aided by some of the world’s most prominent pop writers, restoring Khalid’s opportunity to make his own statement on his own terms. “It was time to make the album that solidifies who I am,” he told Apple Music. “Not only as an artist, but just as a person in this world.”