‘Bird’s Eye’ view: With her sophomore album, Ravyn Lenae makes the most of her time
Across Ravyn Lenae’s new album, “Bird’s Eye,” the Chicago-born singer-songwriter’s lyrics keep returning to time: wanting it, losing it, spending it like money and taking it like candy. Now she’s taking time to share her music on tour, with a stop Saturday, Oct. 12, at The Vic in Chicago.
Charting the hours, days and months has become a familiar preoccupation for many, given the slippery way time has seemed to move in the past four years, ever since the pandemic paused life as we knew it.
For Lenae, the period between 2018 to 2022 entailed not just COVID-19, but a cross-country move from Chicago to Los Angeles, the twists and turns of early adulthood, and the four-year gestation of her stellar first album, “Hypnos.”
After debuting as a teenager with a handful of potential-loaded projects, like the slinky, Steve Lacy-produced EP “Crush,” Lenae took four years to put “Hypnos” into the world. This time around, it took Lenae and company only two years to produce “Bird’s Eye,” a process that served as a night-and-day, black-and-white contrast.
“I had a better understanding of where I wanted to go with the music,” Lenae says via Zoom. “But also, I just feel like I had this revelation and this reinvigoration about life itself, my career and how much fun I can have making music without the pressures that I put on myself with ‘Hypnos.’”
Part of the fun was working with Dahi, who served as executive producer on “Bird’s Eye.” The SoCal veteran has produced hits for Kendrick Lamar, Drake and countless other rap and R&B stars. And with him, Lenae found the same kind of rapport that she had with producers like Lacy and longtime collaborator Monte Booker.
“I love, love having an executive producer, especially when you find someone that you just have that magnetic connection with, which I think is very rare,” she says.
The dynamic between artists and producers can be mysterious and is often misunderstood by the listening public. For Lenae and Dahi, the process would often begin with looping a chord progression as she sang melodies, often questioning herself and trying countless other options. When Lenae stopped after one attempt, Dahi asked why she moved on so quickly, noting that the first thing felt natural and encouraging her to believe in herself.
“Ever since he said that to me, it made me really analyze how I approached my music and really unlearn the overthinking thing that I like to do,” Lenae says.
Trusting her instincts let Lenae take a deep dive into her subconscious, drawing inspiration from both the things she loved and the things that made her uncomfortable as a child. Besides time, much of “Bird’s Eye” is focused on making sense of self amid the push-pull of relationships, romantic and otherwise.
“Something about closing my eyes and trying to remember what these moments felt like, what they smelled like, what sounds I was hearing,” she says, “[that’s] something that I wanted to re-create with the music but also in the imagery of the album.”
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Ravyn Lenae’s “Bird's Eye Tour”
With Arima Ederra
When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12
Where: The Vic Theatre, 3145 N. Sheffield Ave., Chicago
Tickets: $29-$46 at tix.axs.com/