Last December, Ravyn Lenae stood in the street and pointed her phone at herself to film a TikTok set to her song “Love Me Not.”
“Me after linking with him one last time cause I’m not bringing him into 2025,” she captioned the video – a cutesy kiss-off to a guy she’d clearly decided was holding her back from where she was meant to go.
Nearly a year later, it appears the singer was right: In early april, “Love Me Not” – a swinging, lightly psychedelic soul number about a hot-and-cold lover – gave Lenae her first entry on Billboard’s Hot 100; a week later, she made her debut at the Coachella Valley music and Arts Festival. Several months after that, she performed to an keen crowd at Lollapalooza just before “Love Me Not” peaked at No. 5 in mid-August.
Now, with one of 2025’s biggest hits under her belt, Lenae, 26, is winding down her breakout year by opening for Sabrina Carpenter as Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet tour wraps up this week with six sold-out shows through Sunday at Crypto.com Arena.
“A lot of this period has been me asking other artists,’Is this how it normally is?'” Lenae tells me on a recent evening. “How do you balance the social aspect and the online aspect and the touring with also staying highly creative?”
Not to mention tending to a personal life.
“What’s that?” she asks with a laugh. “That’s literally nonexistent.”## Ravyn Lenae is having a Moment – and She’s Ready for It
Ravyn Lenae is riding high. Her sophomore album, “Bird’s Eye,” released last year, is finally gaining the traction it deserves, fueled by viral TikToks and praise from SZA. But for the Chicago-born singer, this moment feels less like an overnight success and more like a culmination of years spent honing her unique sound.
lenae describes her music as drawing inspiration toward classic R&B – “something that would be played on ‘Happy Days’ or some s-,” she says – but retained a spacey vibe that keeps it from feeling rooted in any specific era or genre.
Lenae says her goal was to create something “soulful and Black but that transcends time and race”; the result can be heard in a lineage of enduring hard-to-classify hits like Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” and Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” that charm listeners across demographic lines.
“If you don’t like ‘Crazy,’ there’s something wrong with you,” Lenae says as a pedicurist exfoliates her feet in a West Hollywood hotel room. It’s the end of a long day that began with an early-morning flight from New York,where Lenae performed with Kali Uchis on “the tonight Show” and at Madison Square Garden. Now, after a photo shoot, she’s changed into gray sweats to sneak in a moment of self-care during our chat.
“With the heels I’m wearing all the time,you can see the corns,” she says,looking down to check out the pedicurist’s progress. “I wonder what Beyoncé’s feet look like. ‘Cause if mine look like this? she’s putting in work.”
Though “Love Me Not” was singled out by critics right away,the song really took off late last year after a DJ posted a viral TikTok that mashed it up with Solange’s “Losing you” as part of a series exploring “euphoric” breakup songs. An admiring post on X by SZA – “One of my fav albums this year,” she wrote of “Bird’s Eye” – helped bring more attention to Lenae’s music.## Ravyn Lenae Finds Her Voice, and a Growing Audience
Ravyn Lena in West Hollywood.
(Ian Spanier / For The Times)
The singer grew up in Chicago, where her mother’s parents landed in the late ’70s as immigrants from Panama. That’s their house on the city’s south side in the music video for “Love Me Not,” which Lenae directed and which shows her and her younger sister dancing just outside the bedroom where Lenae slept as a kid.
“I knew this song would be a lot of people’s introduction to me, so I wanted them to instantly jump into my world,” she says. “My grandparents are very shy people, and when my grandma saw the video, she was like, ‘Oh, Ravyn, baby …'”
Singing at talent shows as a 12-year-old, Lenae wanted to be a “a mix between Alicia Keys and Beyoncé,” as she puts it; later, she learned to perform Christina Aguilera’s “Lovely” and Rihanna’s “Take a Bow.”
“I was like, ‘I’m-a win ’em over with this one,'” she says of the dramatic ballads. “I’m sure I sound crazy on video.”
Lenae, who went on to study at the Chicago High School for the Arts, came to understand that the soft lilt of her voice distinguished her from those powerhouses; she found inspiration in “the sensuality and the femininity” of music by Diana Ross, Patrice Rushen and Janet Jackson, whose “All for You” album – released in 2001, when Lenae was 2 – would become a touchstone.
“There’s a lot to win by not being the loudest in the room,” says Rapp.
Lenae moved to L.A. in 2020. Her first year here was rough, she says – she missed her mom and felt the burden of a bank account with $100 in it.”I remember some crying in the shower,” the singer says now.
Her 2022 song “Skin Tight,” a yearning flirtation she wrote and recorded with Lacy, registered as a turning point; so did the success of Lacy’s quirky soul-rock hit “Bad Habit,” which topped the Hot 100 on its way to Grammy nominations for record and song of the year.
“That was a historical moment for artists like us that have be
Rising Star Reneé Rapp on Her Hit Song,Close Bond with mom,and Upcoming Album
reneé Rapp,the singer-songwriter behind the Top 40 breakthrough hit “Love Me Not,” is navigating the whirlwind of newfound success while maintaining a strong connection with her family and preparing for her next musical chapter. In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times,Rapp discussed her recent tour dates with Tate McRae,her close relationship with her mother,and the direction of her upcoming album.
rapp recently finished a string of dates with Carpenter and is now heading east for performances on iHeartRadio’s Jingle Ball tour, continuing to build momentum from “Love Me Not.” She is already looking ahead, collaborating with producer Dahi on her next album, which she describes as “a little more punchy and explosive” than her debut, Bird’s Eye. [https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-12-13/renee-rapp-love-me-not-tate-mcrae-interview]
The artist revealed a especially touching detail about the new album: one song is dedicated to her mother. She played the song for her mother during a recent visit, resulting in an emotional moment. “I had the lyrics up, and as she was reading it, she looked up at me and there was a tear in her eye,” Rapp recalled. “Then we started bawling together. I think that one might end up her favorite.”
Rapp’s relationship with her mother is clearly a significant source of support. She described her mother’s willingness to join her on tour, “just to spend time with me or hold my hand – to sleep in the same hotel bed,” emphasizing her mother as someone she can “keep counting on.”
Despite her busy schedule,Rapp also showed a relatable vulnerability,admitting to forgetting her mother’s birthday and questioning whether she should feel bad about it,a sentiment she described as a recurring internal debate.