If You Like: Musiq Soulchild, Corinne Bailey Rae, Mereba
We live in a time where music is needed now more than ever. In the music industry, artists tend to bypass the growing and wellness stage of their art. Most artists have become slaves to their own selves and fail to achieve true raw passion. If you look hard enough, you can find little moments that make the creation and discovery of sound more meaningful. American singer and songwriter Raveena is able to break through the mundane of that is music and excel higher than the heavens. A sound long lost forgotten to the 90s, Raveena is here to comfort you.
Right out the gate, Raveena draws a comparison to what may have been the golden age of R&B, the lovesick 90s. During that time period, every singer was cranking out R&B love hits that, on Sundays signaled you were spending the rest of the day cleaning. To be blunt, it’s your mom’s early VH1 playlist mix. It’s a very special music genre that has, over the years, been stripped and torn apart by the masses. 90s R&b doesn’t exist in their realm. Luckily for us, Raveena continues to debunk my claim.
Raveena’s music speaks like a warm embrace by the rays of the sun. With her soft voice and layering harmony, it’s impossible to not get lost in childlike memories of discarded youth. Visions of the tangled cord phone on the wall dance around the frontal lobe of my brain. I think back to the first love who lived across the street. It’s images like this that Raveena brings into her creation of a musical honey-filled world. It’s something that makes her music so enjoyable. With words spoken like warm buttermilk and experimental modern R&B embraces, I am a kid again.
Standout songs like “Honey” and “Sweet Time,” really capture Raveena’s vision. She doesn’t try and force you to reminisce but nearly guides you along a path of self-discovery. With her 2019 debut album, Lucid, Raveena nails her point of the album home. By the end of the project, you may have cried, laugh, and overall, learned a little more about yourself. Since 2019, Raveena has released numerous singles and an EP last year, Moonstone EP. It’s artists like this that make it hard to forget about that kid playing make-believe under the shade of an oak tree. I owe many thanks to you, Raveena.