Interview with Debo Ray

May 9th, 2026

A few hours before Debo Ray took the stage for her first New York show, she described live performance as her “safe space.” By the end of the night, it was easy to understand why. The Grammy-nominated vocalist has a remarkable command of her voice, but what stood out most was how naturally she used it as a vehicle for storytelling. In our conversation before the show, Ray spoke thoughtfully about her self-titled debut album, her upcoming EP, Echoes and Embers, her influences, and the “sound weaving” approach that guides her work.

Romy: I wanted to ask about what the experience of performing live music is like for you. Some artists describe it as being exhilarating and even liberating, while others find it anxiety-producing. Where do you feel you land on that spectrum? And has your relationship to performing music live changed over time?

Debo Ray: Performing live is my safe space. It is the place where I feel like things make sense and I’m connecting to something bigger than me. I love collaborating and being on stage with other musicians and sharing the same time, the same energy together. But I wasn’t always like this. When I first started performing—especially with regards to my own music and doing my own thing—I was really, really anxious and really wanting to do a good job and wanting to prove myself, and that kind of got in the way of what I was trying to do. So I started practicing, considering a performance an opportunity to share stories and share emotions with my audience. And that made it a lot… a lot more in tune.

Jerry Velona: No pun intended.

Debo Ray: Oh my God. (laughing) That was totally unintentional.

Romy: Your music has been described as R&B, jazz, metal, hip hop, opera, rock, and soul. What is your relationship with these genre labels? Do you find them useful, limiting or something you’ve moved on from thinking about?

Debo Ray: Well, quite frankly, I feel like labels are for other people. They’re not for me. I don’t really like classifying my music because I’m a lover of so many different styles of music that I just say I’m a lover of sound. And heartfelt sound especially. But I do understand the importance of giving someone a closest approximation without needing to even fully describe it to them. Okay, it’s jazz. Okay, it’s R&B. Just to get the conversation started. And then once people hear the music, they can see all of my influences. I think of myself as a collection of my experiences, plus all of the music that I’ve listened to over the course of my life.

Romy: You mentioned your influences. Which artists have been the biggest influences for you?

Debo Ray: Oh yeah, absolutely. The two that are coming up the quickest are Nina Simone and Jeff Buckley. I love, love both of them. Stevie Wonder. Aretha Franklin. I’m a classic girlie. I love the soul classics. And then on the classical music side, my favorite composer is Claude Debussy. I love his work, especially things like Clair de Lune, one of my favorite pieces. And aside from them, a lot of people don’t know this, but I’m a really big fan of anime. And there’s this composer named Yoko Kanno who was the composer for Cowboy Bebop and a bunch of other anime. And she is kind of genre-less as well. Whatever the show calls for, she’ll write in whatever that style needs to be, and I’m so influenced by her writing.

Romy: You’ve described your artistic approach as “sound weaving”, blending melody, harmony, rhythm, and texture into something moving and unique. I’m curious to learn more about what that process is like for you as you write, compose, and record music. 

Debo: Well, fortunately, I have the help of my lovely partners, so when I write, I’m not by myself. I have my husband, who’s co-writer on a lot of my material, and then my producer, Prince Charles Alexander, who provides a lot of the scaffolding to some of my ideas. So I’ll be in charge of a lot of the musical harmonic elements. Words are really important to me to convey what I’m trying to say musically. Without the words, I feel like, okay, this is a really cool sound, but let’s direct it somewhere. So, Jerry helps me to find the direction of my words. If I have an idea, he weaves these words so that I can weave the sound in with those words. And then Charles steps in and says, Okay, I see this kind of sonic world that your melody is in and that your harmony is in. How about we bring in some other elements to round out this sound?

Romy: Did you arrive at the phrase “sound weaving” as a way of explaining something you had always instinctively done, or did naming it change the way you think about your work?

Debo: Oh, it was definitely the first. It just felt like I had been doing this all of my career, whether it’s with my own original music or with all of the groups that I’ve been a part of. For example, I used to music direct a group called Women of the World that sang in 37 languages. And I had to, somehow, make these songs in languages that I don’t speak have an impact. So, I thought, okay, what better way to do that than to cultivate the sound around it so that people, even if they’re not able to understand it, they can feel it. I love doing that work.

Romy: That’s fascinating. I wanted to ask about your debut album, which is self-titled, a statement of identity. You’ve been talking a lot about collaboration so I’m curious to know, after years of collaborating with ensembles and other artists, what did it feel like for you to put your name on a body of work?

Debo: What I would say is the album was like a homecoming. Like, I had this feeling of, Finally! I’ve done music so long, but I haven’t put my statement out there, so finally it’s arrived. But it was also incredibly vulnerable. Here is like a part of myself that I’m sharing with the world in a way that, when I’m with a group of people, we can all shoulder that feeling of being laid bare. But now it’s my name. It’s my vibe, take it or leave it. So, it was definitely a scary experience, but it turned out to be a really fulfilling experience.

Romy: And then shifting focus to your upcoming EP, you’ve described Echoes and Embers as a narrative arc dealing with your mental health struggles and determination to come out the other side. That’s a really personal thing to put into music, and I’m curious to know what made you feel ready or compelled to tell that story publicly.

Debo: I felt like it was time because I, as a teacher, I felt like I was seeing a lot of these same things that I had dealt with growing up in my students. I really wanted to write for my past self, my younger self, because I saw that in my students and I was like, oh my God. This is not something that only I struggle with. Let’s all come together and go through this journey together of reclamation and of restoring yourself. It just felt like a message that needed to be told.

Romy: And on that topic, dealing with this very personal and sometimes heavy subject matter, I’m curious what your approach is to performing that material live. Is there something cathartic about it, or does it more require emotional armor?

Debo: That’s a great question. I will say, my live experience is what I live for. The studio version of the song was a great capsule to get all of the essence of what I had been feeling. But when I get to perform it live, I get to sit with that feeling and know that through singing, through the song, I’m also working through the feeling internally. If there’s any feeling of doubt or frustration through singing all of these songs, I get to work on it, and I feel like my audience also gets to work through it with me. So it’s a really cathartic experience.

Romy: Well, I’m really looking forward to hearing that tonight. Thank you so much for taking the time and for all of your incredibly thoughtful answers.