As springtime settles into its groove, Chicago-bred R&B darling Ravyn Lenae is on the precipice of a moment thousands of fans have dreamed of for nearly ten years. At press time, “Love Me Not,” the jaunty lead single from 2024’s acclaimed Bird’s Eye LP, sits at No. 5 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 — just a heartbeat away from becoming her first Billboard Hot 100 entry.
For most Lenae fans, 2017 was when she first captivated their attention. After signing to Atlantic Records the year prior, Lenae churned out a beloved feature on Smino‘s “Glass Flows,” opened for SZA‘s Ctrl Tour, and released “Sticky” — a single from her 2018 Crush EP, which helped streamline the aesthetics of her first two EPs into a swirling mixture of funky, Steve Lacy-blessed guitar, Dilla-esque beats, and a devastatingly vast vocal range whose uppermost parts echo Solange‘s fluttery falsetto. Eight years later, Lenae gave “Sticky” its crowning moment midway through her fourth and final sold-out show at New York’s legendary Blue Note Jazz Club on Wednesday night (April 2).
Built around her majestic sophomore album, Bird’s Eye, which Billboard‘s editorial staff named the No. 3 best R&B album of 2024, Lenae’s Blue Note set focused on her most recent album, weaving in selected older tracks to underscore her message of maturation and coming home to yourself while navigating your twenty-somethings.
Beginning with “Sattelites” — a cut from Hypnos, her 2022 debut album — Lenae quickly constructed the live world of Bird’s Eye with “1 of 1” and vinyl-exclusive bonus track “Goodbye 2 You.” Backed by just a drummer and a six-string bassist (who deftly transferred his skills to acoustic guitar when necessary), Lenae slinked around the stage like a forest nymph; her fiery deep-red tresses flowed behind her like a carefully contained flame, adding a striking flourish to the pose she hit at the end of each song.
Although she didn’t hit high-octane combinations — after all, the Blue Note is a dinner club! — she refused to remain stationed behind the microphone stand. Whether she was accentuating each snare hit with a funky shoulder pop, recalling early Motown-era Diana Ross with her animated facial expressions and neck movements, or ethereally painting the space with her oft-outstretched arms — Lenae left no doubt that not only does she know how to work a stage, but she also is more comfortable than ever both in the booth and onstage.
Lenae got so comfortable that she choked herself up — and moved several audience members to silent tears — with her heartbreaking true-to-life anecdotes. In one particularly beautiful moment in which time seemed to stop, Lenae recounted the incredibly painful memory that inspired her Childish Gambino-assisted “One Wish.” Before she dove into a breathtaking rendition of the Bird’s Eye single — her vocals were virtually flawless the entire night, and she frequently hit new (and even more impressive) riffs and harmonies — Lenae explained, as she has in previous shows, that “One Wish” was born out of her father ghosting her after promising to show up to her 10th birthday party. She sucked all the air of the club with that story, and breathed it right back into the space with her stunning performance.
A similar moment happened before she launched into “Pilot,” the reflective, penultimate track on Bird’s Eye. Through recounting her own 20s journey, Lenae, 26, urged the audience to “talk to their moms and grandmas” to help remember “what made [them] excited to wake up in the morning when they were 15.” Near the end of the song, she switched the “I just know I’m twenty-four/ Small to the world I’m in” to different ages, underscoring the song’s universality.
By the time the show came to a close, Lenae played every song on the standard version of Bird’s Eye (barring “Bad Idea”), as well as fan-favorites like “Xtasy,” “Venom” and “The Night Song.” To send her final Blue Note crowd back to the streets of Greenwich Village, Lenae blazed through “Love Me Not,” leading the crowd a sing-along that truly underscored the weight of the moment. Surrounded by a crop of listeners clearly comprised of mostly longtime fans, Lenae got to bask in the chords of her current breakthrough hit just before midnight struck in one of NYC’s most iconic venues.
Ahead of her stint as an opener for the final leg of Sabrina Carpenter‘s sprawling Short n’ Sweet tour later this year, Ravyn Lenae delivered an outstanding show that somehow improved on an already-terrific sophomore LP.
