- Singer-songwriter Ravyn Lenae’s fan base is constant to develop as her 2024 single “Love Me Not” has gained traction on TikTok in current months
- The Chicago-born R&B star will make her debut at Coachella on Friday, April 11
- Forward of her set and her opening stint on Sabrina Carpenter’s Quick n’ Candy tour later this yr, Lenae caught up with ipromiseyoumedia in regards to the “timelessness” of her newest hit — which she says was born from a hook and verse from Anderson .Paak a decade prior
Ravyn Lenae remains to be sitting within the automotive exterior of collaborator Dahi’s residence, minutes after driving via some “thick L.A. visitors” simply to get there.
In the meanwhile, she’s within the “early levels” creating her subsequent album and has been locked in for round two weeks, she tells ipromiseyoumedia over Zoom. However whereas she’s been on the seek for that “subsequent feeling” in her music, the 26-year-old rising R&B artist can’t assist however smile over simply how a lot her followers — each the day-ones and new ones — are actually connecting with that final feeling.
On the high of 2025, a number of months after its launch final spring, Lenae’s monitor “Love Me Not” — the lead single off her sophomore album, Hen’s Eye — discovered a brand new viewers with the assistance of a TikTok mash-up and listeners who simply couldn’t fairly pinpoint which decade the tune hails from. That alone, Lenae says, has been sufficient to maintain her engaged on new materials.
“That is been tremendous inspiring for me to get up and really feel inspired that individuals are discovering my discography and discovering me as an artist,” she says.
For these not tapped in or simply now catching “Love Me Not” on their for-you-pages, Lenae has been chasing that subsequent feeling since she signed with Atlantic Information as a teen again in 2016. She discovered fairly a number of followers along with her Steve Lacy-assisted Crush EP in 2018, earned some important acclaim and added notoriety for her debut album Hypnos in 2022 and is now experiencing a special stage of consideration practically a yr after releasing Hen’s Eye — her August 2024 LP all about perspective, with a little bit assist from some new collaborators together with Ty Dolla $ign (“Dream Lady”) and Infantile Gambino (“One Want”).
Whereas the album absolutely had its followers on the time, “Love Me Not” has solely fueled the thrill round each Hen’s Eye and Lenae herself — who subsequent month is scheduled for her debut efficiency at Coachella, forward of a gap slot on Sabrina Carpenter’s Quick n’ Candy tour within the fall.
And should you ask Lenae, she knew she and Dahi had one thing particular proper after they landed on “Love Me Not.”
“It’s that feeling that you aren’t getting tremendous typically with songs. Like the identical feeling I acquired after I heard ‘Hey Ya!’ for the primary time, or these actually particular songs that may dwell endlessly,” Lenae says. “And I believe the factor I’ve paid most consideration to is individuals saying that, ‘Oh this tune, I believed this tune was a tune from the ’50s.’ After which anyone else would say, ‘I believed it was from the ’70s.’ That to me is de facto fascinating as a result of that signifies that this tune has qualities of our favourite intervals … It has this timelessness about it that I believe I am actually realizing now.”
Those that are taken again to the 2010s after they hear “Love Me Not” wouldn’t be too far off-base, both. Because the Lenae shares, Dahi — the Grammy winner behind hits together with Kendrick Lamar’s “Cash Timber” and Mac Miller’s “Self Care” — had really labored on the tune beforehand with Anderson .Paak over a decade earlier than he and Lenae turned it into what it’s at this time.
“There was a skeleton of the tune there,” Lenae tells ipromiseyoumedia. “The manufacturing took on a special life, prefer it moved extra into the alt-pop, indie world with the guitars, and we simply actually constructed on it.”
“However Anderson had the hook on there and the primary verse. So there was undoubtedly the melodic selections, they undoubtedly impressed the remainder of the tune and the form that it took from there,” she provides. “Anderson is simply an icon and that is anyone I am closely impressed by. So to have the ability to work with him on it was actually particular for me.”
One other identify concerned within the “Love Me Not” lore is Solange — whose 2012 Dev Hynes-produced hit “Shedding You” was used for a mash-up with Lenae’s monitor by New York DJ thatsode. The audio, shared again in October, created a domino impact that prompted the tune to go viral within the first place.
“I believe early on for me seeing a Black girl within the music house, but additionally actually pushing boundaries and never being frightened of taking dangers and merging issues that individuals may not get the primary time and possibly they will get it the third time. I believe that is what impressed me probably the most about her,” Lenae says of Solange, whom she shared a photograph alongside final yr.
“After which simply the freeness that she reveals via her music, via her visuals, via her exhibits is one thing that I cling to along with her,” Lenae provides. “So she’s going to all the time be an inspiration for me and any girl in that house, particularly being a Black girl and having that freeness, but additionally having that carefulness with the issues that they put out into the world is one thing that I undoubtedly take note of.”
After the Solange mash-up, and after her former tour mate SZA tweeted about Hen’s Eye being one in all her favourite albums of 2024, Lenae says “Love Me Not” merely took on a “lifetime of its personal.”
Now, as Lenae admits with amusing, she already has followers combating over her.
“I believe the funniest factor has been seeing the followers who’ve been like day-ones and been there from the start shuttle with the brand new followers,” she says. “Like, ‘You all do not deserve her.’ Or like, ‘This is not even her finest tune.’ I believe it is actually humorous simply to see how they’re partaking with one another, but additionally I believe [it’s important] simply ensuring that individuals perceive me as an artist and never letting one tune devour my whole discography.”
The right subsequent step, after all, is for brand new followers to “actually dig into my older initiatives,” which Lenae herself calls “probably the most thrilling factor about” artist discovery. “Following their journey and seeing how they acquired to this place and the way even simply sonically, the locations that they went earlier than they landed right here is one thing I am focused on,” she says. “So I hope individuals need to go on that journey with me.”
Provides Lenae: “I believe an invested Ravyn fan will need to begin from the start. It is vital to start out there, simply to essentially hear the place I come from, the place I began, who I began with. It is such a giant a part of my story and the way that is taken form through the years. So these are the kind of followers that I need to hold and nurture and actually develop with.”
Lenae’s forthcoming stint on Carpenter’s Quick n’ Candy Tour — which may also characteristic openers Olivia Dean and Amber Mark — may also seemingly safe her some extra of these invested followers. And, as she tells ipromiseyoumedia, it began with a message from Carpenter herself.
“It is so humorous as a result of she DM-ed me possibly like a month in the past and was similar to, ‘I am such an enormous fan.’ And like, that gagged me clearly,” Lenae says. “And I had heard via the grapevine that she was going again out on tour, and so I hit my supervisor and I used to be like, ‘Oh, possibly we should always ask and see in the event that they discovered anyone but or what is going on on.’”
“Earlier than we may even do this, they’d already hit us about it,” she provides. “In order that simply felt very fateful for me, and I am so excited to fulfill her, to see her present and to simply meet her followers.”
Till then, Lenae remains to be adjusting to the viral success of “Love Me Not” and the schedule that comes with it. However as busy as issues could get, she stays centered on doing what she does finest — chasing that subsequent feeling.
“My wheels have been turning a lot, simply round actually nice issues. Like daily I really feel like I get up and there is one thing new to speak about,” she says. “A brand new alternative or, I do not know, I simply get up actually hopeful and enthusiastic about chance. In order that’s me proper now.”