Leikeli47 Unveils Lei Keli ft. 47 / For Promotional Use Only: New Single “Soft Serve” Drops
With the calendar locked for June 13, the question isn’t whether Leikeli47 can top her beauty-shop trilogy; it’s how audaciously she’ll redraw the blueprint now that the world can see her face.
Leikeli47 has officially lifted the curtain on her next full-length, Lei Keli ft. 47 / For Promotional Use Only, due June 13, 2025, through her Acrylic/Hardcover imprint in partnership with Thirty Tigers. The 11-song set arrives three years after she wrapped her beauty-salon trilogy with Shape Up and, in her words, functions as a “coming-of-age” document—equal parts playful, melodic, raw, and elevated—co-executive-produced with Grammy-winner Harold Lilly and built by the same studio team that powered her previous LPs. What’s immediately striking is the symbolic clean break from her once-signature anonymity: having first shown her face in last autumn’s “450” video, the Brooklyn rapper now keeps the mask off to underscore what she calls an “aerial perspective,” suggesting broader vision and unfiltered self-presentation.
Early teasers confirm a lean track list sequenced like a mixtape, opening with “Passenger 47,” pivoting through the already-released “450,” and culminating in a title track subtitled “Different Person,” a wink to her unmasked rebirth. Thematically, the record explores the tug-of-war between street-honed bravado and communal uplift; Leikeli says she “only sells out to the moment,” framing success as a fluid performance rather than a commodity.
That ideological split is dramatized in the brand-new single “Soft Serve,” issued on May 6 alongside a video by longtime collaborator Dana Rice. Over a pounding house rhythm laced with ominous synth pops and whispered ad-libs, she toggles between decadent imagery—“taste the fame, feed me more”—and surgical braggadocio, a delivery that’s likened to the ballroom mike-controller tradition that fuels the beat. Visually, the clip plunges into a technicolor ballroom where queer dancers vogue beneath swirling ice-cream pastels, echoing Leikeli’s long-standing devotion to Black and LGBTQ safe spaces first mapped on her Wash & Set and Acrylic eras. The choreography doubles as an emancipation ritual: with no balaclava between artist and audience, every camera swivel telegraphs her insistence that vulnerability can amplify, not dilute, hardcore swagger.
With the calendar locked for June 13, the question isn’t whether she can top her beauty-shop trilogy; it’s how audaciously she’ll redraw the blueprint now that the world can see her face.