Born in Santa Monica and raised in the Woodland Hills suburbs of Los Angeles, in a bi-racial black and Jewish family, McRae was immersed in music at a young age. While in high school, McRae attended GRAMMY Camp in Los Angeles and received a full ride to attend the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. She later graduated with a degree in popular music performance.
McRae describes herself as a worldly person and describes her music as folk alternative pop. In 2019 she released her first single, “White Boy,” which garnered attention from Refinery29, Earmilk, and Wonderland Magazine. In 2020 she released singles “Wolves” and “The Plague,” which were released at the beginning of the pandemic. McRae was named KCRW’s favorite new artists of 2020 and NPR’s Slingshot’s 2021 Artists To Watch. She has also been included in #YOUTUBEBLACK Voices Artist Class of 2021.
She recently released a clip playing the imagined first few lines of a Phoebe Bridgers song from a potential album in 2023, spoofing on the Bridgers impeccable wordplay. The clip caught the attention of the "Bridgers" - the tribute clip went viral, streaming over 2.3M times. McRae went into the studio with executive producer Rahki (Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, EarthGang, Kari Faux, Syd, Rejjie Snow, Sampa The Great, etc.) and wrote and recorded a full version of “Immune,” out now.
“Jensen McRae was born and raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles in a mixed-race family immersed in music. She knew from the first time she heard Alicia Keys streaming through her mother’s stereo as a toddler that she would spend her life making music of her own. Now 23, McRae is poised for a monumental 2021, with her long-awaited debut album set to drop any minute now. Though she only has a few songs currently available, each one reveals her to be a songwriter most adept at placing listeners inside her experience, and showing how universal that experience can be.” – Anne Litt, KCRW, NPR 2021 Artist To Watch
IG: www.instagram.com/jensenmcrae/ // 16.4K followers
T: twitter.com/Jensen_McRae // 10.8K followers
S: 592,748 monthly listeners // 13,907 subscribers
Y: youtube.com/user/jensenmcraeofficial // 4.91K subscribers
