Layla Rey just made her move, and it hits different.
The half-Black, half-Filipino R&B pop artist from Los Angeles is back with “Still I Rise,” and if you thought you had her figured out after “Like I See a Sunshine,” think again. That track was warmth and emotional stillness: love feeling safe, clarity after the storm. This one is something else entirely.
Underground house grooves, velvety rhythmic layers, an atmospheric quality that feels less like a genre choice and more like a whole entire mood. She didn’t just switch it up. She leveled up.
And here’s the thing: her voice doesn’t oversell it. Not even a little. She sits inside the groove like she owns it, controlled and unhurried, phrasing that reflects rather than performs. There’s a quiet authority in that restraint that a lot of artists twice her profile still haven’t figured out. Layla Rey has already done the internal work. The music is just the proof.
She pulls from two distinct musical worlds: church vocals and gospel runs from her Black heritage and deep melodic romanticism from her Filipino side, and on “Still I Rise,” those two forces don’t pull against each other. They push her forward. “It’s rhythm and vulnerability at the same time,” she says. Exactly that.
Her reference points are Whitney Houston’s emotional authority, Janet Jackson’s rhythmic precision, and Kehlani’s willingness to sit in the uncomfortable truth. “I don’t try to hold them,” she says of those influences. “I let them pass through me.” On this record, you hear exactly that.
“I want my music to feel like a frequency you step into,” Layla has said. With “Still I Rise,” that frequency has a name.
She’s not building toward something. She’s already in it.
“Still I Rise” is out now.