Just Keke

Ask three different people what their favourite Keke Palmer role is and you’re likely to get three different answers. Ask those same fans what their favourite Keke Palmer song is and you’d be lucky to get any answer at all. To be fair to Palmer—and those fans—the headline-making actor, singer and media personality has put a lot more energy into building her cinematic catalogue than her musical one. Which is a shame, because as her third album, <i>Just Keke</i>, verifies, Palmer’s own story is as interesting as the ones she’s brought to the big screen. Which isn’t to say the album doesn’t owe a lot to her other passion. It’s rife with nods to Palmer’s love for television, including interludes featuring the music of sitcoms <i>Moesha</i>, <i>Sex and the City</i> and <i>Living Single</i>. The three are framing devices for Palmer’s adult life which, much like the TV shows, has featured calamitous adventures in career, love and growing older with grace. Indeed, Palmer addresses the dissolution of her relationship with her child’s father numerous times across <i>Just Keke</i>. It’s a story tabloid readers were invited into when the father of Palmer’s son took to social media to express his disdain for an objectively tender moment during a 2023 Las Vegas USHER concert when the “Confessions” singer made a show of serenading Palmer. <i>Just Keke</i>’s “My Confession” returns the favour, borrowing both the singer’s cadence and candour. Elsewhere, Palmer is overjoyed if not at complete peace with her life and the direction it’s taken. She’s earned her status as a new media darling—see “Amnesia” for a reference to her infamous “Sorry to this man” quip—and as she points out on “Ripples”, she comes from great stock. The fact is, Palmer was built to strive, and with or without the adulation, being <i>Just Keke</i> is enough.