DEBO RAY

December 30th , 2024

Grammy Nominated Vocalist Debo Ray To Release Debut Album

Boston-based singer/songwriter Debo Ray will release her debut solo album entitled “Debo Ray” on Friday, February 14th , 2025. The album contains ten original compositions by Ray and her co-writers Jerry Velona and Prince Charles Alexander who also produced the sessions at Dimension Sound Studios in Jamaica Plain, MA. The songs are best described as contemporary R&B with pop, jazz, dance, afrobeat and hip hop/rap influences.

Debo Ray is known for her stylistic versatility, prodigious vocal range, charismatic live performances and musicianship. A child of Haitian immigrants, she began singing at age four in her parent’s church. After receiving classical training at Boston’s Handel & Hayden Society, Ray attended Berklee College of Music where she immersed herself in jazz, R&B, rock, metal and world music. After graduating, Ray began touring with the world music group, Women of the World with whom she would eventually become music director and perform at the Newport Jazz Festival. While still with WOW, Debo was asked to join Social Science, a group
formed by world-renowned drummer/composer and NEA Jazz Master Terri Lyne Carrington. In 2022 along with the group, Ray was nominated for a Grammy for the album The Waiting Game.

Along the way, Ray became an in-demand session vocalist and performed with a wide range of bands including the funk/metal group Screaming Headless Torsos. She was also a part of several musical theater productions including a principal role in
the opera The Jonah People performing with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.

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In 2022, Ray embarked on a solo career and began writing and recording original material. To date, she’s released ten singles with more releasing with the album. The songs feature engaging lyrics, sometimes playful, often absorbing and clever, all containing persistent themes of female empowerment, great loss, being true to one’s identity, coping and overcoming hard times and relationships both very right and very wrong. “My songs are based on my life experiences which I’d like to think are shared by many of us,” said Ray, “I write what I know and feel which I hope will connect with others.”

The album features songs like Time With You, a hip-hop inspired tribute to committed love highlighting Ray’s lush vocal layering that appears on many of the songs. Feelin’ Lucky, a dance pop banger in the style of Doja Cat and Dua Lipa finds Ray turning “lucky in love” on its head with insouciant lyrics and a defiant swagger. Gaslight speaks to a type of relationship dysfunction not often addressed. Money humorously addresses not having much and wanting more with a pulsing afrobeat groove. Other songs like Tell Me What You Want and You Read Me Wrong (not yet released) push the boundaries of r&b with rock influences and allow Ray to display her considerable rap writing and flow. The album ends with Take That, (releasing on 2/14/25) which, along with another album track Now You’re Here, shows Ray channeling her gospel roots with soaring, emotionally-charged vocals. Now You’re Here has received over 155K streams on Spotify. Producer and Grammy winner Prince Charles Alexander who has worked with Usher, Mary J Blige and other top names in hip hop and r&b, leaves his mark on the production in all aspects including his choice of instruments and deft mixing.

An album release show is scheduled for Saturday, February 22nd at the Burren Backroom in Davis Square, Somerville.

For Further information and interview opportunities:
Jerry Velona – jerry@iamdeboray.com
Anna Martins – anna@projectsbyag.com