Just before Keyshia Cole took the stage at Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater on Friday night, the DJ warming up the crowd made it a point to note that it was International Girlfriend Day. At most other shows, this minute detail would simply scan as audience hype filler. But last night, it translated as an almost coded warning for anyone who chose the concert for Friday date night: Treat your girlfriend right. Or else.
Cole, a fiery R&B singer known for pushing out notes as if she can barely contain them, made that very clear two decades ago when she released her debut album, “The Way It Is.” And it’s a message that rang true years later at the penultimate U.S. stop on her 20th anniversary tour, an international trek evoking the ferocity and grit of an album that weaponized her pain as power.
At the time, “The Way It Is” stood apart from the syrup-sweet crossover R&B records of the mid-aughts. The album was released amid a period of club-targeting hits from contemporaries like Chris Brown and Usher, songs that were light on message but heavy on flash. Cole emerged more in line with the heartbreak traditions of R&B’s past, channeling the same sort of hurt and frustrations that drove some of the genre’s best, like Mary J. Blige’s “My Life” and Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.”
Only the album sounded refreshed for modern times, cleanly produced by hitmakers of the day like Krucial Keys and Polow da Don. Cole’s greatest gift is her ability to sell what she’s singing, and “The Way It Is” had the distinct ability to communicate the spectrum of emotion incited by a nasty breakup. Cole co-wrote nearly every song on the album, fueled by the betrayal and sorrow that she experienced. On “The Way It Is,” she bemoaned love both metaphorically and literally, her raspy voice punctuating each snipe and admission of regret on songs like “I Should Have Cheated” and “Love, I Thought You Had My Back.”
Much to her credit, Cole has lost none of the spark that defined much of her earlier work; that much she made clear during her hourlong headlining set at Peacock Theater. Preempted by opening sets from Wale, Amerie, Fridayy and Elijah Blake, Cole demonstrated that time may not always be the greatest solvent for heartbreak. As she revisited every song from the album, it was clear that those feelings were still very much present, even if they’re now dressed up in a fine-tuned show some years later.
Cole performed much of the album out of order, which didn’t make for much disjointment. “The Way It Is” wasn’t a linear narrative by any means, instead unified by its common themes. Yet at Peacock, she began with what felt like an appropriate mission statement: “I’m tired of the bullshit,” she sang with the opening notes of “Guess What?” That point was a catalyst for the rest of the evening. Sure, she’s over it, but let’s not kid ourselves. Cole was deeply wounded by the man who accused her of the same infidelities he committed and quickly moved on. All she was left with was the grief and suffering she then channeled into song.
She performed those tracks like the wounds were still fresh. Some of the show was dressed up in spectacle, with backup dancers cycling in to act out the true-to-life arguments that she was describing. But Cole was at her best when she was alone, belting the Jay-Z-referencing “You’ve Changed” and “We Could Be” while lying on a giant heart platform at the back of the stage. Cole’s voice is as ferocious and emotive as ever, and while she hit dance breaks during “I Changed My Mind” and “Shoulda Let You Go,” she demanded focus when it was just her and the microphone, barreling through the hauntings of romance past.
In the wake of “The Way It Is,” Cole expanded her purview to explore party anthems and — gasp — records that valorize the idea of love. Songs like “Let It Go” and “Trust” drew some of the strongest reactions from the Peacock crowd, who made the event feel more like a party than a therapy session. And it’s a testament to Cole: No one is defined by a singular breakup or album, even if you stage an entire tour around it.
And yet, Cole acknowledged at the end of the show that everyone in the audience had been waiting around for her to perform the album’s signature song, “Love.” That ballad has had a resurgence in recent years as a late-stage viral phenomenon, rediscovered by new generations drawn to its raw power. It’s a curious song, too, easily mistaken for a romance record based on its chorus — “Love, never knew what I was missing, but I knew once we start kissing, I found you” — but revealed as, yes, another breakup song on its verses.
It was, in a way, the perfect ending to the Los Angeles stop on “The Way It Is 20th Anniversary Tour.” Love can be a lot of things: complicated, devastating, fulfilling. It can also be a thing of beauty when it sounds as sweet as it does on “Love,” even when its message plays against it. Cole proved early on that her pain wasn’t just one thing, but many, and found countless ways to express it. That she’s able to convincingly convey that two decades later only reinforces how authentic she’s been from the start.