Raveena Aurora was born in Queens, New York, into a family who fled their native north India after her maternal uncle was killed in the 1984 Sikh pogrom. You have to give people that amount of time to understand it and digest it.’” “‘You made an album that’s so nuanced, and complex, and has so many different facets to it, and layers, and you spent so many years working on it. “One of my closest friends said this really beautiful thing,” she recalls.
After two EPs and a debut album, 2019’s Lucid, she felt confident enough to commit to music that is eleborate, yes, but not impenatrable. “Obviously it’s a bit more challenging for listeners, but I also think they want to be challenged, and experience art that lives outside consumable soundbites,” she says. Does she worry this could alienate potential fans? Not at all. She’s someone, she says, who “hasn’t existed in mainstream pop music” before. Raveena is a queer, South Asian, female artist who straddles themes of spirituality and sexuality.
