Jensen McRae Tickets at The Button Factory

Born and raised in LA, Jensen McRae has studied and made music for most of her life. She attended Grammy Camp in high school and graduated from USC’s Thornton School of Music with a degree in Popular Music. McRae’s debut album, ‘Are You Happy Now?’, was written mostly when she was just 21, and explored what she describes as her “musical coming of age.” Again, here, McRae’s talents as a narrator loom large; ‘Are You Happy Now?’ navigates identity from its deepest foundations – life as a young, bi-racial Black and Jewish woman – to its most personal musings – do I trust you, do I trust myself. McRae is working toward her next album, due to come out next year, and she knows the breadth of that collection carries a different heft. “I’ve lived a lot more, and have a lot more experience to share,” she says. “The record will touch on those moments that are harder, less healed. But before we pull back the curtain,” McRae continues, “it feels right to touch on this hopeful moment.”

Self-described as “one house down from the girl next door”, McRae has been compared to artists like Tracy Chapman or Phoebe Bridgers, and with good reason. Her voice is dynamic, her melodies are immediate, almost addictive. Most of all, the blunt force of Jensen McRae’s songs is in the stories they tell, and in the ways they invite you to see, feel, and hear yourself within them. It’s this skill that makes ‘Massachusetts’, and McRae, so easy to love.