Words by Sam Damshenas

“Songs like ‘tank top’ need to be celebrated!” says Khalid. Lifted from his fourth studio album After the Sun Goes Down, the house-infused floor-filler finds the Grammy nominee fawning over a “heartthrob in the tank top” — a shimmering ode to desire and a symbol of his full liberation as an openly gay artist. 

The path to self-acceptance, however, didn’t come easily. Last year, Khalid was publicly outed by an ex, a violation that robbed him of agency over his own story. For one of the world’s most-streamed artists (over 34 billion on Spotify, by the way), he felt “exposed and naked” living through something profoundly personal under the internet’s microscope.

Instead of being silenced, Khalid pushed towards radical honesty. After the Sun Goes Down bursts with that freedom: shimmering house grooves, early-00s-inspired R&B and dance-floor-ready hooks that radiate queer joy. As Khalid tells Gay Times, being outed was “confirmation of my path”. 

“It was like, ‘I might as well write what the fuck I want to write. I might as well write songs about kissing men or holding hands and falling in love. Because why not? What stops me now?’” he explains. “I feel like when you listen to my music from before, there's a loneliness. When you listen to my music now, there's a confidence.”

As he covers Gay Times, Khalid reflects on how embracing his sexuality shaped the sound and lyrics of After the Sun Goes Down, what it was like featuring his first-ever male love interest in the ‘out of body’ video, and the Black LGBTQIA+ artists he wants to join forces with. The key word throughout? Liberation.

Khalid, congratulations on the release of After the Sun Goes Down. How does it feel having it out in the world? 

It feels really good because I'm just so happy to be myself as a musician and to represent myself, and I love that so many people are loving music that is me expressing honesty and sincerity. I feel really good that it's living in the world, because that's what you make these projects for: to be received by people, to see people feel connected to it, and to see them gravitate towards the music. I feel really good. I'm happy. It's crazy, you live the months waiting for it to come, and then it happens, and you're just like, ‘Wow, it’s really out there in the world.’