Kehlani’s rumoured new girlfriend, the very hot 070 Shake (Danielle Balbuena), is all over the “Honey” singer’s social media at the moment. Earlier this month, Kehlani took to Instagram to celebrate the new year, writing “note to self, stop flipping the bird so much in 2022. thank you yet again Baegas,” along with a picture (above) sitting on Shake’s lap.
Soon after, Kehlani posted more pictures of a night out with friends. There’s two pictures of Shake: one with a masked Kehlani flipping the bird (her New Year Resolution’s going well!) and another with Kehlani sitting on Shake’s lap. There’s no mistaking the look of lust between them.
Kehlani came out as a lesbian in 2021. “You wanna know what’s new about me?” the singer asked fans on Instagram Live, “I finally know I’m a lesbian.” So gay-baiting is ruled out. It’s not confirmed whether the pair are a temporary shack-up or a long-term thing, but taking it to Instagram is a sign they’re more than casual.
What do we know about 070 Shake?
We know 070 Shake’s an American hip hop recording artist in her own right. She’s part of the musical collective 070 and they’ve released a mixtape titled The 070 Project: Chapter 1 together. Shake became popular through her appearances on Kanye West’s production work, including “Ghost Town” and “Violent Crimes” from his album Ye, after she signed up to his label in 2016. Shake debuted her first studio album, Modus Vivendi, in January 2020, which includes the catchy song “Flight319.”
What does “Modus Vivendi” mean? “I was reading a book called Raising the Curtain, about meditation and spirituality,” Shake told Vogue. “I read the words, looked them up, saw the definition [of the Latin] and was like: ‘This is it! This relates to everything that I am and the message that I want to send to people,’ It means an ‘agreement allowing conflicting parties to coexist as one’. So it’s basically a peace treaty. It’s saying, you can believe what you believe and I can believe what I want to believe, but we can put that aside and get along. We don’t need to let our differences affect our relationship. We are one.” Amen!
The 24-year-old Gemini from New Jersey, who has “070” tattooed next to her left eye, was given the nickname “Shake” when she played basketball in high school. She started writing poetry during these basketball days, which she put to music on Soundcloud. Making music helped Shake deal with depression and being surrounded by teenage drug abuse.
“It’s kind of a dark energy,” Shake said about growing up in New Jersey. “But you’re going through it with people, so it makes it positive in a way. It’s very extreme, your friends are all you have in New Jersey and they can make or break you. It’s our school systems, the goals that they have for us, it stresses people out, it doesn’t allow people to be creative, so they resort to negative things. I think it’s the authority. It holds you back.”
Shake has always been gender non-conforming and didn’t back down when it came to buying “boys clothes” when she was a kid. “The little boys section all day! Ever since I was a youth. My mom used to hate it, but it’s not so much about being a boy or a girl – there’s stuff in the girls section I like––it’s that, to me, clothes don’t have a gender. I see a skirt and I don’t think of a girl, I just see material and shape. I forget about everything else when it comes to clothes.”
She’s also a thrifter! Where does she shop? “Salvation Army! I’m not really big into fashion. Yeah, I got Prada shoes on––if I like it, I like it, regardless of the brand. But I’m not like, ‘did you see that new collab?’. I prefer to go to thrift shops. My boy from Jersey, @jjjreese on Instagram, made these trousers I’m wearing. He’s gonna come up crazy.”
Are Shake and Kehlani the newest lesbian power couple? Let’s hope!
