As someone who’s grown up listening to R&B, I never expected to get back into it with a newer, more modern artist. Nothing stuck with me like the older songs did, and even those lost their appeal after a few listens. However, diving into Instagram and Youtube got me caught in an amazing discovery of the singer Raveena Aurora, an Indian-American from New York City, whose voice sounds like literal gold. Actual, literal gold.
Her music focuses on self love, as well as empowering women of color specifically. She sings about finding intimacy within and with yourself (“You’re milk and honey/the drink I drink before bed”), as well as comes into terms with her own bisexuality, as she does in her song “Temptation”, singing “In my dreams I can feel your softness/Get lost in your head of curls/I tell you things I can’t tell my boyfriend/Sometimes he don’t understand.”
Listening to her song, “Honey,” for the first time, I felt my soul transport out of my body. I felt like I was in some dream-like state, impossible to be brought down – if I wanted to come down in the first place. Raveena wields an ariness to her voice, which is matched with the silkiness of her words. I couldn’t stop listening to it, even after I’d replayed it a few ten times.
(image source: Snobette)
I feel as if it’s important for music to make you feel complete. It’s important for music to make you feel as if you’re melting away, as if the world has no troubles and you’re at ease, even for a moment. Raveena Aurora gives me a hope that everything will be alright, even if things seem to be falling apart. Raveena shows that she has the talent to be in such an industry, and her messages of empowerment and self-love, especially in today’s world, are extremely important. To have her in the music industry, as an R&B/Soul singer, proves that there’s a little bit of hope left – enough to make a dreamlike tune that’s sweeter than honey.