A Nurse who is also an RnB star in the making!

By: Gill Holland

I doubt anyone hearing Terra Renae sing in the choir at St Margaret Mary would ever have thought she would be doing a major European stadium tour opening for Grammy winner Macy Gray.  And it is doubtful anyone at Eastern High School or even at University of Louisville where she got a doctorate in nursing would have known it was the same person when she walked on the stage at Mercury Ballroom for a packed home-town crowd!  But that is the amazing thing about Louisville and the talent that exists in this city.  One can be a nurse and an emerging RnB pop star at the same time...

It was that show that cemented in singer songwriter Terra Renae the realization that, between recording sessions in Los Angeles, touring across Europe and the USA, and walking onto stages thousands of miles from where she grew up, leaving Louisville makes you appreciate Louisville even more!

Because she has come home.

Louisville is where Renae first sang in choirs and school productions. It is where she began modeling with Heyman Talent Agency. It is also where she met her husband and creative partner, and where the two began making music together long before anyone outside their circle was paying attention.

The journey from there was unconventional and filled with twists and fortunate turns.

Renae met Macy Gray by chance in Los Angeles, who heard something special in the up-and-coming Louisville artist and ended up as executive producer of Renae’s debut album, All I Have. Gray didn't simply lend her name to the project. What followed was something Renae jokingly describes as "artist boot camp."

There were long days spent in the studio, endless writing sessions, vocal lessons, performance critiques, and countless hours spent learning how to translate her voice into a unique identity as an artist. Gray would have Renae send video assignments and critique everything from her vocals to her body language and stage presence.

At one point, Gray explained why she continued pushing her: "The more I pushed you, the harder you worked."

That relationship eventually took Renae from the recording studio onto the road with Gray, first internationally and then across the United States. 

Travel has a funny way of changing your relationship with home.

Louisville's creative culture can be difficult to define because it doesn't particularly care about being defined. We have bluegrass and bourbon, certainly, but there are also punk bands, hip hop artists, painters, filmmakers, indie musicians, wild-eyed poets, fantastic chefs and offbeat creative communities that always seem to find one another.

Renae has come to appreciate that quirkiness more as her world has expanded. Her music may be pop and R&B, but the distinctly Kentucky underpinnings to her music include the storytelling, emotional directness and the independent streak that doesn't fit neatly into a category. That becomes particularly apparent on her second album, Every Part of Me.

If All I Have was Renae learning how to become a recording artist, Every Part of Me captures the confidence of an artist who now knows who she is.

The new record expands her sonic world while becoming more personal. Pop, R&B and cinematic production collide with songs about confidence, relationships, escape and the complicated process of figuring out who you are.

Some of the formidable collaborators (artists and producers) on this second album include Lauren Christy, Mikal Blue, Epic Mazur, Midi Jones and Macy Gray who helped shape the record around the creative center formed by Renae and her partner.  They write and build songs together from their home base in Louisville and then take that material into studios with some of the industry's most accomplished creators and business folk. That distinction matters, because the songs aren't arriving from a songwriting camp asking Renae to find herself inside someone else's idea. The songs begin inside her personal lived experience which gives the music an emotional foundation before the first vocal is recorded. The results have begun reaching far beyond Kentucky.  Renae's debut album now has over one million streams on Spotify, a number she admits would have sounded ridiculous to her when she started.

But perhaps the more interesting measure of progress is what happens on the road. After recent performances, Renae began hanging around the merchandise table. Strangers approached crying, asking for hugs and telling her what particular songs meant to them. Merchandise sold out. Audiences thousands of miles from Kentucky sang back.

And then she came back to Louisville, feeling particularly vulnerable performing for both friends and other people who know the places she came from.  Our hometown audience knows the geography behind the dream. Looking out at that Mercury Ballroom crowd, Renae realized the distance between St. Margaret Mary, Eastern High School, UofL, Los Angeles and Europe suddenly didn't seem quite so far. Renae had traveled a long way to become an artist.

It turns out Louisville had been traveling with her the entire time.

And with Every Part of Me, she is bringing the next chapter home.  Link here!  https://open.spotify.com/album/5i0zuhQ7GUH39vzZaq11dG?si=72e2b46ebd5c462f