Ravyn Lenae
Ravyn Lenae Washington grew up in Chicago and studied classical music at the Chicago High School for the Arts before co-founding the Zero Fatigue collective with Smino and producer Monte Booker and signing to Atlantic Records in 2016. Her music threads an airy, upper-register falsetto through a soft-focus blend of neo-soul, alternative R&B, and chamber-pop textures, first on a run of EPs and then across the albums 'Hypnos' (2022) and 'Bird's Eye' (2024). A years-in-the-making breakthrough arrived when 'Love Me Not' went viral and climbed into the Billboard Hot 100's top five in 2025, reframing her as one of the decade's defining young R&B voices.
Steve Lacy produced Lenae's 2018 EP 'Crush' in its entirety and sings on it, stamping the record with the loose, guitar-driven bedroom-funk feel he built with The Internet — a warm, slightly lo-fi groove that became a key part of Lenae's early palette.
listen forThrow on Lacy's 'Dark Red' for that soft, round electric-guitar tone and easy pocket, then play Lenae's 'Skin Tight' — which Lacy produced and features on — and hear the same rubbery guitar and unhurried funk groove cradling her vocal.
Lenae has embraced comparisons to Minnie Riperton, whose weightless, high-soprano soul and orchestral, chamber-leaning arrangements are a clear touchstone for Lenae's own feather-light upper register; critics have noted how the lush, string-laden 'Come to My Garden' sound hangs over the closing stretch of 'Hypnos.'
listen forCue Riperton's 'Les Fleurs' and sit with the way her voice floats up over a swelling orchestral backing, then hear the same airy, string-cushioned soprano lift in Lenae's 'Wish' — both let the vocal drift above the arrangement rather than push against it.
Lenae has named Erykah Badu among her influences, and the lineage shows in her conversational, jazz-inflected phrasing and unhurried neo-soul grooves — the same tradition of loose, spoken-feeling melody over warm, hip-hop-adjacent rhythm that Badu helped define in the late 1990s.
listen forPlay Badu's 'On & On' for its relaxed, talky vocal delivery riding a laid-back groove, then put on Lenae's 'Genius' and notice the shared instinct to let the melody meander and bend conversationally rather than land on tidy, four-square pop phrasing.