Rileyy Lanez

Bronx, New York-based artist Rileyy Lanez writes songs about love, heartbreak, and the strength gained from relationships, and is deeply inspired by the early 2000s R&B sound. Lanez signed to Columbia Records and released several singles and an EP before presenting her style in full view on 2022 full-length Bittersweet.

Lanez was born in the Bronx in 2001. Dance was her first love, and she studied it throughout school, only realizing that she had a talent for singing when she was nine. In her teens, Lanez began uploading covers of her favorite songs to social media, and when someone sent her a beat, requesting that she write to it, the result was the piano ballad "I'm Leaving," which began to rack up millions of views in mid-2019. Next, Columbia's A&R department came calling, and with the support of her mother -- who effectively became her manager -- she attended an audition. Following a brief a cappella performance, Lanez was reputedly signed on the spot, and by October, "I'm Leaving" became her label debut.

Within a heartbeat of that release, she was featured on True 2 Myself, the debut album by her labelmate and fellow Bronx R&B artist Lil Tjay. Proving that she could work quickly, Lanez wrote lyrics and recorded vocals for the mid-section of their collaboration "Post to Be" on the very same day that she received the track. March 2020 brought "Left 4 Me," an ephemeral but heartfelt single with a lean production ethic that recalled turn-of-the-century R&B. The following month's "Foul Play" was markedly more direct and bass-heavy, and all three singles appeared on May's Beautiful Mistakes EP. Lanez released several stand-alone singles in the time between Beautiful Mistakes and 2022's Bittersweet, a seven-song project that served as her most involved artistic statement to date. ~ James Wilkinson, Rovi