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R’n’B rising star Ravyn Lenae is back with a new single
Two years after the release of Hypnos, Ravyn Lenae is still riding the wave of her sensational debut album and solidifying her transformation into a heroine of experimental R&B. On her sophomore album, Bird’s Eye, the 27-year-old singer navigated music genres and explored a wide range of sonic textures to better recount her melancholic memories. After joining popstar Sabrina Carpenter on her U.S. tour, the American singer is unveiling a new single, Reputation (2026), featuring Dominic Fike.
By Alexis Thibault.
Published on 8 April 2025. Updated on 7 April 2026.
When she thinks back to her childhood in Chicago, Ravyn Lenae, 27, mostly remembers the music playing from her father’s car stereo. Digging deeper, she also recalls a garden—an Eden buried under autumn leaves in burnt orange. Years later, she realized those childhood wanderings had inspired her music. As if, to compose, she had to dive back into a time when adult problems hadn’t yet replaced carefree laughter.
Focus on a rising star of R’n’B music
Two years after releasing Hypnos, her dizzying debut partly produced by Steve Lacy, Fousheé, and Kaytranada, the musician unveils with Bird’s Eye an alternative R&B of striking maturity. In these meticulously lush compositions, one hears the elegiac touch of SZA, the graceful fervor of Erykah Badu, and the effortlessly cool experiments of Steve Lacy, who had already produced her EP Crush back in 2018.
Numéro: Your music is hard to pin down, wouldn’t you say?
Ravyn Lenae: My music is all about feeling. I like to think I’m drawing inspiration from a world that doesn’t exist yet… a dreamlike space that’s fluid, flexible, and soft all at once. I weave it like an endless thread that embraces all kinds of waves. Why not call it a fairy tale?
Classick Studios, a creative hub in Chicago
The granddaughter of a pastor, Ravyn Lenae grew up attending a Christian church. Around age 15, she joined After School Matters, a summer program offering arts and music classes to Chicago teens to keep them off the streets during school breaks. After all, any artistic discipline could turn into a career. The teenager earned her first paycheck: 300 dollars.
She used it to book a session at Classick Studios, a hotspot for rising artists. There, she crossed paths with Noname, Chance the Rapper, and Mick Jenkins—three rappers whose careers now speak for themselves. But it was with Smino and producer Monte Booker that she formed a close bond. Together, they created the Zero Fatigue collective. Years later, Ravyn Lenae is a force on stage. In 2017, she joined fellow Chicagoan Noname on her Telefone Tour, then opened for none other than SZA…
Virgil Abloh as an inspiration
How better to gauge an artist than by tracing their evolution? Three tracks in particular reflect Ravyn Lenae’s transformation. First, Everything Above, a neo-soul gem—complete with lo-fi crackling percussion and silky bass—from her 2016 Moon Shoes EP. She already displayed undeniable talent, though she was still mimicking her idols. Then came Venom, a more electronic pivot from her 2022 album Hypnos.
Here, her voice cuts through in an airy, striking track, revealing a new alter ego: a fierce femme fatale. Finally, there’s Love Is Blind, one of her favorite tracks from Bird’s Eye (2024). Her falsetto calls to mind FKA twigs‘s alternative R&B — whose artistic universe extends far beyond the genre — and captures a perfect fusion of neo-soul and electronic experimentation.
Numéro: What’s your relationship with experimentation?
Ravyn Lenae: Musical experimentation has always been a deep desire of mine. These days, I follow Virgil Abloh’s 3% rule: to write a song, start with something very familiar that anyone can relate to, then transform it by 3%. Just subtly enough to make it feel new… while still recognizable.
Collaboration with Childish Gambino and Dominic Fike
Following a sold-out show at La Machine du Moulin Rouge in Paris in November 2024, Ravyn Lenae joined pop star Sabrina Carpenter as the opening act for her U.S. tour until November 23rd, 2025.
Meanwhile, her track Love Me Not, also extracted from her album Bird’s Eye, steadily gained traction worldwide. The artist currently pulls in 300,000 monthly streams and nearly 300 million weekly views on TikTok — the new benchmark for American pop star popularity.
Today, Ravyn Lenae is unveiling a single featuring Dominic Fike and dares to dream of new ventures. Why not into the film industry? She took a few acting classes in high school but admits her memory still falters when it comes to memorizing long scripts. To be precise, she already has something in mind: voicing a Disney princess.
Reputation (2026) by Ravyn Lenae, featuring Dominic Fike, available now.
