MANILA, Philippines – Over the years, Indian-American singer-songwriter Raveena has made magic through her craft. There’s a particular soft feminine energy she exudes through her heavenly vocals, especially when mixed with R&B instrumentals and experimental pop elements.
From the beginning of her career with the release of the jazzy “You Give Me That” in 2016 and her succeeding drops after that, such as “If Only” and “Honey,” which would both go on to be her most popular releases yet — there was always a dreaminess that only Raveena could seem to produce.
Years later, now with three full-length albums under her belt, it isn’t going away. Why would it, when it’s through this very softness that Raveena finds power, not just for herself, but for anyone who encounters her soulful records?
Finding her voice through music
Having been brought up in an Asian immigrant household where feelings often go suppressed, Raveena learned to find solace in music.
“When I was growing up, because emotions weren’t really processed in an open way, I turned to music. It was really like a healing force in my life, navigating all those different cultures of growing up in America but being from a Sikh and Punjabi household,” she told Rappler.
Music really started off as an outlet to make sense of her emotions, and in turn, heal from them — not knowing that years later, she would go on to offer the same kind of healing for millions of listeners.
There’s another layer to Raveena’s music, however, one that has played a pivotal role in the sort of growth she gets from creating: her meditation practice. The 31-year-old singer is a firm believer in the influence meditation holds in enabling her music to drift harmoniously from her core, and not just through what the public wants to hear from her.
“I always try to create from a healed space because I want to be intentional about the vibrations I emit to the world, so I try to get in that meditative space — a space where people can feel that energy from me,” she shared.
When an artist’s music becomes a vessel for spiritual transformation for both themselves and their following, it could get difficult to strike a balance between creating freely and being aware of the thought that many people look to you as a source of energy.
In her Where The Butterflies Went film released on YouTube in October 2024, Raveena had even said: “As an artist, you belong to everybody… a lot of the time. Every moment someone is listening to you or receiving energy.”
But for Raveena, it’s all about boundaries.
“A lot of it is setting boundaries with my public self versus private self and just deeply knowing that no one can really touch my perception of my private self other than [me]. Creating this little world of safety for myself in my own personal life through meditation, through yoga, through my routines, through the way I talk to myself, what I allow myself to read about myself, and having strong boundaries, which takes a lot of time to develop as an artist,” she explained.
Freely creating
It’s learning to set these boundaries that has really given Raveena the liberty to create as she pleases, and that’s something the public had seen rather quickly in her latest single “Sun Don’t Leave Me.”
The track, which runs for just over three minutes, came to Raveena at the height of the LA wildfires. Overcome with a pang of grief over its effects on the climate and her and her loved ones in the area, Raveena got to writing, and later, the song came into fruition.
“Sun Don’t Leave Me” opens with sounds you’d hear when you’re surrounded by nature: birds chirping, water flowing, and the wind blowing. When Raveena’s voice begins to enter, it becomes clear what the song alludes to — nostalgia for the times when things had been simpler on earth.
It’s a song that sounds relatively positive at the first listen when you only pay attention to the music, but things change when you actually dig deeper into the words Raveena utters. But that’s where the novelty of her artistry lies: the ability to marry both grief and appreciation for what once was, and what we have left of it.
“Sun Don’t Leave Me” is just a portion of an even greater release of Raveena’s, her Where the Butterflies Go in the Rain album, which she just released the deluxe version of.
In a Reddit “ask me anything” session she hosted following the release of the album’s original version, Raveena divulged that the process of creating the entire record had “changed [her] relationship to music and to the material world.”
These realizations were ignited by a constant process of learning things about her personal self and her calling as a musician.
“I don’t have to worry about results, I don’t have to worry about the whole material world that comes with making music and the whole public aspect as long as I remain focused on the creation and channeling a spirit while I’m creating. That’s going to just guide my life in a really beautiful way, and guide the music [I make] in a really beautiful way. I think a lot of this album was just learning how to become the most open vessel possible to receive that music,” Raveena told Rappler.
It’s this overall awareness of her spirituality that has really given a unique edge to Raveena’s music. When you imagine the whole process that went into creating a song — one that didn’t just involve sitting down to write then walking into a studio to record — you get a newfound sense of appreciation for the stuff Raveena produces. – Rappler.com