‘It’s hard to make music if you don’t feel like yourself’

As Chicago-born singer Ravyn Lenae achieves a transatlantic Top 10 hit, she talks to Ellie Muir about manifestation, going on tour with Sabrina Carpenter, and connecting with her dad

- Ellie Muir

Ravyn Lenae's bathroom mirror is plastered with rainbow-coloured sticky notes. Written on each one is a different goal. Every morning, the 26-year-old US psychedelic-R&B singer stands before this gallery of ambition with her eyes closed, visualising her dreams into existence.

And it’s working - many of those scribbles have become a reality in recent months. Her viral grungy summer anthem “Love Me Not” allowed her to cross off one milestone in particular: a US Top 10. Also checked off the list are a UK Top 10; a performance on Tonight with Jimmy Fallon; and a support slot on tour with reigning princess of pop Sabrina Carpenter.

“I’m never not going to write anything down ever again,” Lenae laughs, sitting cross-legged beside a watercooler at a north London rehearsal studio. “The physical act of putting your goals into the world is so powerful, and if I write it, that means I already believe it.”

Self-belief doesn’t always come naturally to Lenae. She turned to manifestation after losing her confidence during the lull between her Steve Lacy-produced electro-funk 2018 EP Crush and her 2022 debut album Hypnos. “It was four years of me digging myself into this weird hole, where I was spiralling, overthinking, underthinking, and not really sure about my position in music, and if people cared,” she tells me. “I also felt unlike myself, and I don’t know how to explain that. It’s hard to make music that feels right when you're in that space.”

Once Lenae started her visualising techniques, her mental obstacles melted away. “It sounds so simple, but I just started thinking of myself as bigger, and talking about myself as bigger.”