Win Tickets ($50): Lady Wray @ Aladdin Theater | w/ Brainstory, R&B, Soul, Blues

We are giving away a pair of tickets to Lady Wray @ Aladdin Theater on August 8. To win, comment below on this post why you’d like to attend. Winner will be drawn and emailed July 31.

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From our sponsors:
Lady Wray
August 8, 2023
Doors 7PM, Show 8PM | $25 | All Ages
More info: event.etix.com

Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave, Portland, OR 97202

Like most artists, Nicole Wray’s life in music has always reflected her real life. As a fifteen-year-old in Virginia, she auditioned for Missy Elliot in her mother’s home. Even then, with her voice so full and arresting—Missy signed her on the spot. Later, in 1998, merely two years after that tryout, she had a debut solo album and a single that smashed up radio and TV, quickly going gold. But back then—young and unsure—Nicole was essentially following someone else’s lead, signing the lyrics they wrote for her and in the way they wanted them sung.

Fast forward to now, after a few fits and starts with other labels and projects, and you’ll find a very different Nicole Wray. Today, she’s a mother, a wife, and living for herself and her family. So naturally, this evolution followed into her music: she sings how she wants to, expertly writing lyrics for herself and others. To hear her tell it, it’s these things—and most importantly, an unflinching self-belief—that help lead a young and raw Virginian singer named Nicole to become Lady Wray.

The latest step for Lady Wray is her new album, released on Brooklyn’s Big Crown records. Called Piece of Me, the record is—on the one hand—a continuation, picking up where Lady Wray and label co-owner/producer Leon Michels left off with Queen Alone. But Piece of Me is also a kind of homecoming for Lady Wray. That first record sonically showcased the dexterous range of Lady Wray’s voice and songwriting by leaning toward soul and R&B with tinges of hip-hop. On Piece of Me, it’s still R&B with a heavy dose of soul, but you’ll hear boom-bap-smacked drums and chunky basslines front-and-center, all creating a head-noddingly dense backdrop for Lady Wray to traverse—much like the era in which she was first introduced to us. In some ways, Piece of Me is like a Big-Crown-ification of late 90s R&B—and Lady Wray is right at home.

With this in mind, when talking about this record, for Lady Wray, it’s another step toward a larger purpose. “My goal is always to help and to heal people with singing,” she explains. “Part of that is to try and bring back real music, real singing, so people can feel something again.” Now, she’s not dissing anyone here, to be clear. It’s just that Lady Wray cannot sing without tapping into something deeper, searching for that shared compassion between all of us. Perhaps it comes from her church upbringing, or maybe from her years of trials and tribulations in the music industry. Either way, Lady Wray is looking to bring that “Good Sound” back and the good feelings that come with it. She calls it “those inner hands,” and she always means to stir them up, grabbing your attention from within.

With past albums like the Lady project and Queen Alone, it’s hard to not acknowledge that Lady Wray plus Leon Michels production equals magic. But this magic is also coming from the fact that Lady Wray is now squarely herself, calling her shots, and singing to help heal first—everything else is secondary. “It’s a beautiful thing I’ve always wanted in my career, and now I have it,” Lady Wray says. “They encourage me to be me all day long.” This is Lady Wray at her finest, and she’s giving us all a piece of where she’s at these days.