Ari Lennox gave me the R&B and neo-soul indulgence I needed, complete with tender tears
Ari Lennox headlines Jazz Cafe Festival 2026
Hot off the press and high in demand
In the early hours of the morning, I was at the airport heading on a trip to Porto. It was 13th February, the day before Love Day, and it’s safe to say I was deep in my feels. So naturally, realising that the Jazz Cafe Festival—with Ari Lennox headlining no less—had already released tickets sent me into impulse purchase overdrive.
In this economy, third and fourth-release tickets seem to double as quickly as you catch your breath. I was on a 3-hour flight. Waiting around for sense to catch up with me simply wasn’t an option. From the discomfort of my Ryanair seat, I sped through the Dice checkout process and secured a sweet summer evening with Ms. Lennox.
Postcards from Porto in February 2026
“If you do, you are. If you do not do, you would be.” — Agostinho da Silva.
Jazz Cafe Festival 2026, scorched scenes at Burgess Park, and the soul-stirring Ari Lennox
This year, Jazz Cafe Festival took place on Sunday 2nd August 2026. After countless heatwaves, Burgess Park was scorched to a crisp. The dust from the dried grass threatened to make the festival experience unbearable, but the music lovers pushed on, knowing the delights that awaited.
In its closing hours, night had begun to fall, but one name shone clear as day. The festival stage screens flashed “Ari Lennox” in the brightest white against a black background. Shrieks soon followed with growing anticipation among the crowd.
We heard the star’s honey-glazed voice before she emerged head-to-thigh in leopard print. The black leather belt cinching her waist matched the pair of gloves adorning her hands in true jazz glamour. Silver bangles jingled and jangled each time she waved extra sauce into her vocals. Waist-length, luscious braids crowned her elegance and a face card that could never decline. Trombone in the driving seat, Ari Lennox took us on a trip to her hometown via Vacancy’s opening record “Mobbin in DC”. The microphone was her magic wand. With it, she enchanted thousands.
Postcards of the scorched scenes at Burgess Park in London, August 2026
Festivalgoers unearthed new levels of grass reduced to dust at Jazz Cafe Festival during what’s set to be one of the UK’s hottest summers since records began.
The backdrop: Ari Lennox writes songs that tug the heartstrings, hers included
Ari Lennox makes modern soulful music that can turn anyone’s insides gooey. She layers tender vocals atop vulnerable lyrics that chart the chaos of human experiences with the heart. The artist’s introspective stories have made me wince, cackle, and cry—she brings us into her world where rhythm truly meets the blues.
Why “New Apartment” makes me wince
I don’t yet own an apartment, but I still sing this song with my whole chest every single time. It’s no revelation that Black women live with the systemic pressures of perfectionism. From Michele Wallace’s Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (1978) to modern depictions of the Strong Black Woman, the relief of leaving “curls in the shower” and “dishes in the sink,” plus the “nobody can tell me sh*t” line in the song really hit home for us.
With one hand gripping the barrier and the other punching the air, I let myself dream of the “New Apartment” independence I’ve been longing for. The melodious sound of Ari and her backing vocalists, Blanche and Dexter, soaked into my skin like a bubble bath, making me wince even harder at the thought that I, too, like the artist, need people.
Ari Lennox in her Shea Butter Baby album Cover
Why “Boy Bye” makes me cackle
Ari didn’t perform this song at Jazz Cafe Festival, but it’s one of my favourites. It’s the musical embodiment of a romantic comedy. Ari Lennox and Lucky Daye make it hard not to laugh at their not-so-sly digs.
She mocks his game:
Those lines belong in 1995
Just like them funky Nikes
And he returns her energy:
With the wrong size
Them toes is bustin' out them slides
You ain't think I saw that?
In just 3 minutes, Ari Lennox stirs more chemistry in this rom-com track than I’ve seen in feature-length films. On top of playful talking cuts, the record presents bold protagonists. They make their feelings known, teasing each other and sharing confessions: “Ooh, I don't know you / True, I like you”. It’s a welcome break from some of the “sad girl R&B” music writer Shelley Paterson so eloquently writes about on Substack.
“Boy Bye” by Ari Lennox ft. Lucky Daye
Your new favourite karaoke duet with your bestie and/or lover. Thank me later.
Why “Whipped Cream” made me cry
It’s fun to laugh, but feeling mustn’t go amiss. It’s no surprise music sprouting from the blues bears melancholic fruit in both its lyricism and unyielding vocal intensity.
Hearing Ari Lennox reach the first note of “Whipped Cream” made my whole body shudder. I looked down to see my arm hairs raised, standing on end. More than a song of lost love, the record describes the grief that latches onto heartache, then sweeps every other misfortune along with it.
Having rinsed the song on repeat, I noticed the effect of Ari’s voice as it lingers on certain words, etching imagery in the mind. The recent death of my grandmother tore me into shreds like no other heartbreak. I cried day and night, rocking myself to sleep “bullet tight,” as Ari Lennox describes. I saw my grandmother’s face in all my relatives graced with her lineage.
Naturally, not all lyrics match up to familial grief, but the lines that do sting, especially the “vivid dreams” and “whipped cream”. From the verses and chorus to the bridge, “Whipped Cream” details the aftermath of loss. In my world, this looked like indulging in food I’d usually have the willpower to turn down, asking myself unfair, unkind questions, and pursuing other distractions to avoid confronting the pain.
Postcards of my front row view at Ari Lennox’s one-night-only London show, August 2026
I didn’t want the show to end. I was full of such big emotions and had no idea what to do with them or where to put them.
Singing along with Ari Lennox at Jazz Cafe felt cathartic. Just as a tender tear welled up, Ari held the microphone to the side—she had broken down too. The emotions tied to the artist’s breakout single spilled out onto the stage. After a short moment to compose herself, the singer shared how her own grief-tangled lyrics had hit her.
“I think that’s the beauty of music when you’re really spilling your soul in a song, it just hits you like that,” said Ari Lennox.
She didn’t sugarcoat the financial loss gnawing at her mid-set. I was moved by her openness. I think we all were. We listened quietly until Ari Lennox said: “I’m sorry about that.” The people were having none of it. Affirmations and cheering from the audience engulfed her explanation and apology. We were with her and needed her to feel safe in our presence.
Postcards from Phuket, Thailand in April 2026
The impeccable sunset I witnessed the evening I learned of my grandmother’s passing.
Dear Ari, Black women in the UK love you. We will always root for you.
When I looked around the crowd, I noticed just how many Black women had found their way to the front. Between the Londoners, people from the Midlands and north of England, the person beside me who had come alone, and others speaking various European languages, the “Shea Butter Baby” singer was a homing beacon for Black women that night. We turned up en masse.
Many watched Ari strut across the stage in black stilettos in awe as she held a musical mirror to our experiences. Some continued to scream “I love you” gleefully. And we all shared her relief when she tossed the chic (but uncomfortable-looking) heels aside.
When she sang “Pretzel,” Ari Lennox oozed the kind of sultry tenderness that doesn’t ask for permission but instead makes its desires known. Commercially successful hits like “Break Me Off” offer an original point of view for Black women—a perspective absent of the male gaze that often dominates the charts and leaves Black women of darker complexions out of the picture.
Ari Lennox headlining at Jazz Cafe Festival in Burgess Park
Vocal range has entered the chat
I first heard Ari Lennox sing live during J. Cole’s 4 Your Eyez Only world tour in Nottingham in October 2017. I travelled from Bath for hours on the coach to get there, before returning to my university campus in the early hours the next day. It was tiring, but totally worth it.
Ari’s soulful energy complemented J. Cole’s poetic lyricism and razor-sharp delivery. I was impressed by her vocals then, but by the time I saw her again in May 2023, her sound had matured. The Ari who graced the stage in my home city for the Age / Sex / Location tour was self-assured and grown. This time it was J. Cole’s turn to complement her international tour. He turned up unannounced, mic in hand, ready to perform his verse on “Shea Butter Baby”. Ari was in shock. The crowd practically lost their minds, too—myself included.
Postcards from the Eventim Apollo in London, May 2023
Ari Lennox stunned by the surprise appearance of J. Cole during her world tour.
At Jazz Cafe Festival, Ari’s performance of Ella Fitzgerald’s “Blue Skies” was a standout moment in the show that I don’t think got the appreciation it deserved. She brought a real live jazz experience to the Jazz Cafe Festival—and nailed it. There’s so much vulnerability in taking on a record by the First Lady of Song, the greatest jazz vocalist in history. Between her scat singing, poise, and control, Ari Lennox offered a view into the music that shaped the artist she has become today.
Later in Ari’s set, the playfulness I described in “Boy Bye” surfaced on stage. “Where my Jamaicans at?” she asked. I had to apologise to the woman beside me after screaming her poor ear off. The artist sang “Company,” demonstrating further vocal range and mastery. In that moment, Ari Lennox tun bad, syncopating the lyrics with rhythmical flair—toasting in true dancehall style.
In an interview with Brad Farberman for Tidal, Ari recalled celebrating her 30th birthday in Jamaica, then bawling when she had to leave the island and its magic behind:
“It was so deep that when I was driving to the airport, I cried like a baby, ’cause I did not want to leave. That place has the most beautiful energy I’ve ever felt in a country,” she told Tidal.
Her vocal delivery in “Company” told me that she applied the same due diligence when studying the Queen of Jazz. I’ll admit I was disappointed when I listened back to the track on Spotify. It lacked the exuberance I had heard on stage with the live band. It felt like a more palatable version that kept Ari Lennox’s big voice small. I wish the team had made more daring choices in the studio recording, leaning into the irie vocal quality she originally fell in love with. At the very least, it would have been worth exploring as a remix offered outside of Vacancy.
Ari Lennox in her Vacancy album Cover
Unfortunately, there is immense pressure on artists to keep producing the same thing or stay within boxes others have made for them. Ari Lennox opened up on some of this in her interview with the Blue Project:
“For the longest I’ve been having a hard time trying to understand, and I know this is negative thinking, but what was such a big difference between Shea Butter Baby, the album, and everything else I’ve ever made afterwards. Why was it such a means of like turmoil for somebody? Like ‘she’ll never make stuff like this first project again’. Like is this not soul still? What do I have to do?”
Neither this pressure nor these expectations are sustainable or conducive to making good music. As listeners, we need to give artists more opportunities to try new things and fail; they’re human after all. It’s through trial and error that people have cultivated most, if not all, the best artistic discoveries. For this reason, freedom of creative experimentation is needed now more than ever.
In this era of generative AI expansion, the music industry is soul-searching. Between Tidal banning AI music from monetisation, Spotify labelling AI personas posing as human artists, and Pitchfork serving Tyga’s latest AI-assisted album a historic 0/10 rating, the industry is trying to get its house in order.
As listeners, we need to sort out our side too. To me, that means listening more intentionally, seeking better curated experiences, and being more vocal about the projects and experiences I love.
More writing on the way next month. Stay tuned!
