Struggling to separate from someone never sounded so good as Ravyn Lenae’s “Sticky.”
Her effortless vocal range is fully at play here floating above a bewitching electric organ, funky 60s bass riff, and rippling cymbals in a video that’s a hazy technicolor dream. It’s all so vintage-inspired you might try to adjust your rabbit ears, but don’t be alarmed. 21-year-old Ravyn Lenae probably doesn’t even know what those are. But she does know enough to have already released her third EP, been featured as one of Rolling Stone’s 10 New Artists You Should Know, and toured opening for SZA, so she’s good.
“Sticky” recounts one lover’s conflicted perspective on a relationship that needs to end, and the video falls right in line. In addition to the technicolor effect, most of the video is dominated by a 360-degree camera that circles Ravyn Lenae while her voice and lyrics bounce between confusion, determination, resentment, shame and back again. The cherry on top is how she channels her full Donna Summer with amazing hair, makeup and wardrobe that extends to a small crew of women spinning alongside her.
The end result is a smooth, slinky look and sound that Ravyn Lenae calls “cosmic” and the Austin-American Statesman described as “a watercolor R&B platter with startling depth.” And if this is Ravyn Lenae tangled up in relationship drama, I can’t imagine what’s in store once she’s wriggled free.
𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘:
“I stick around when things are falling down”