{"id":2345284,"date":"2026-03-25T18:20:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2345284"},"modified":"2026-03-25T18:20:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:20:33","slug":"love-me-not-new-music-grammys-snub-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/love-me-not-new-music-grammys-snub-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Love Me Not,’ New Music, Grammys Snub and More"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tTwo years ago, in May 2024, Ravyn Lenae<\/a> spent a warm evening playing to a sizable crowd at UC Davis<\/a>. The campus performance fell on the same day that she released the dreamy R&B single \u201cLove Me Not\u201d as the introduction to her second studio album, Bird\u2019s Eye<\/em>. \u201cObviously nobody knew the song,\u201d Lenae, 27, recalls. \u201cAnd as soon as the drums came in, I saw the crowd completely shift.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tWhen she thinks of it now, the performance calls to mind an ancient relic that surfaced a few months later: a video of MGMT<\/a> playing an early version of \u201cKids\u201d to a small but mighty crowd at Wesleyan University in 2003, two years before its official release. \u201cThat\u2019s one of my favorite videos ever,\u201d Lenae says. \u201cSeeing a crowd have a physical reaction to something without being told to is such a human and raw experience that we don\u2019t really get to have anymore.\u201d As she watched the audience react to her set, she thought to herself, \u201cThere\u2019s something really special about \u2018Love Me Not.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLenae\u2019s instincts were right. In April 2025, nearly a full year after that college show, \u201cLove Me Not\u201d broke through at Number 81 on the Billboard<\/em> Hot 100, and by last summer, it had jumped all the way to\u00a0 Number Five. (It\u2019s also been used in millions of posts on TikTok.) \u201cWhen we finished that song, I knew it was a big song \u2014 there\u2019s something about it that strikes every chord, at least for me,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was just a matter of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn fact, her breakthrough wasn\u2019t mere months in the making, but years. Lenae signed to Atlantic Records in 2016 as a bright-eyed 17-year-old following the independent release of her debut EP, Moon Shoes<\/em>. That deal felt like a confirmation that everything was going according to plan, as she always figured it would. \u201cYou\u2019re chasing that high of being on the brink \u2014 and that can happen multiple times a year, that can happen once every 10 years,\u201d Lenae says. \u201cBut that\u2019s the feeling you want to recapture and put in a bottle.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tShe\u2019s spent most of the past year reflecting on that young, whimsical perspective as Bird\u2019s Eye <\/em>whisked her away on the road for months \u2014 including a primetime hometown performance at Lollapolloza in Chicago<\/a>. \u201cWe planned a homecoming type of week leading up to the festival,\u201d Lenae says. \u201cIt forced me back into that mindframe of coming home and remembering where I was, what I was thinking, who I was hanging out with, what I was listening to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tShe hosted a signing at Reckless Records, the local shop where she\u2019d browse the vinyl racks as a teenager hooked on Kendrick Lamar and Janet Jackson. <\/strong>She also went back to Chicago High School for the Arts, the place that shaped her into a classically trained musician. \u201cThose markers of time were important for me to feel, especially during that time,\u201d she says. \u201cEven moving forward, having those moments to check in and remember. Fifteen-year-old me would have been so excited and patient and grateful for where I\u2019m at.\u201d<\/p>\n

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