Ravyn Lenae releases new album "Blue Island" after a viral hit's aftershock

Ravyn Lenae has released Blue Island, her third studio album and her first since the surprise viral breakout of "Love Me Not." That song, from her 2024 album Bird's Eye, wasn't a hit on release. It became one after a TikTok mashup paired it with Solange's "Losing You," pushing it to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 7 on the Global 200, a wave of attention Lenae didn't create and had to figure out how to respond to.

Named for the city in the Chicago area where she was born, Blue Island reunites Lenae with producer Dahi, her main collaborator on Bird's Eye, on a record that leans into nostalgia rather than chasing another viral moment. She told Paste her reference points included Blondie, The Sundays, Nelly Furtado, Madonna and Lykke Li: "It's a big bag of random stuff that I like to pull from."

The album pushes against being boxed in by genre. "I'm not gonna make an album full of R&B songs just because you want that," Lenae told Paste, adding that she doesn't think artists should have to stay in one lane once they've grown past it. She told Dazed that when "Love Me Not" reached a wider audience, her Blackness and identity as an artist were picked apart in ways she hadn't experienced before.

Closing track "Let Us In" pushes furthest past the album's retro touchstones, described by NPR as the most daring experiment on the record and the point where Lenae sounds freest from outside judgment. A separate report on the album ties it to her Panamanian heritage, part of the wider conversation around the record's roots.

Blue Island is out now, part of the same week of new R&B and soul and pop releases as Becky G's Baraja Bendita.