BY MAUREEEN PARKER for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 8/28/2026
Okay, so boom!
I’m scrolling on the TikTok, like we all do when we have time, and as my algorithm does, it sent me an amazing vocalist who I had to stop and listen to.
First of all, I didn’t know how old this baby was, but it didn’t really matter because I was listening to what she was doing with that voice, and she was doing A LOT! My girl was floating, and it sounded soooo nice that I listened to it more than twice.
Ms. Thing is giving you airy, effortlessly smooth vocals that seem like they’re from someone much older, considering she’s spent only 22 years here on this here space rock. Lucky us, we get her from Idaho. IDAHO, y’all! Boise lost a real one when Raegan Leilani moved up here in 2018. I had no idea they was growing original folks like this.
Leilani originally thought she was going to attend school for music production as a plan B instead of writing and performing. She quickly realized that the behind-the-scenes part of helping someone else put their music together was not actually her jam, so to speak.
What she wanted was to make her own music. Today, Leilani’s doing just that with her band, playing jazz, neo-soul, and alt-pop in and around Tacoma. Since releasing an album, Keep It Boring, Girl!, last year, they’ve opened for several artists and headlined their own shows at venues including Jazzbones, the Airport Tavern, The Valley, and even the Spanish Ballroom at McMenamins Historic Elks Temple. So, if you live in Tacoma and you’ve ever been outside, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve already heard them.
With influences like Norah Jones, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Amy Winehouse, Leilani is also a multi-instrumentalist, covering piano, guitar, saxophone, and clarinet. This ability gives her another perspective as an artist in the way she hears how all the pieces of a song fit together.
There was always a piano around her house, and at about 8 years old, she started playing music by ear. By middle school, she had joined band class at school and pretty much hit the ground running. At one point, she read that Adam Levine knew how to play multiple instruments and essentially decided, “Yep, that’s going to be me, too.”
Having family involved in musical theater probably didn’t hurt either, although Leilani figured out pretty quickly that musical theater wasn’t necessarily her thing. She tried it, but as she put it, she was just “too quiet” for all that. What’s interesting is that her quietness doesn’t translate to being timid when she performs. You can see that she genuinely enjoys what she’s doing. There’s an ease to her, not only in the way she sings but in the way she settles into the music.
Nothing feels forced. Nothing feels like she’s trying to convince you that she can sing. She just . . . sings. And chile, SHE CAN SING.
That effortless quality is actually one of the things that caught my attention in the first place. There are singers who can hit the notes, and then there are singers who make you wonder if hitting those notes requires any effort whatsoever. Leilani gives us the latter.
That same authenticity comes through in her writing, too. You can tell her lyrics come from her heart and soul, and I think that’s part of what made me stop scrolling in the first place. Her voice is beautiful, absolutely, but there’s something behind it. At 22 years old, she already seems to understand that having a beautiful voice is one thing, and having something to say with it is another.
What with YouTube being a free source for musicians who want to learn, she also had the ability to teach herself at her own pace, something that this generation of artists has access to in a way that previous generations simply didn’t.
When asked about how she feels about AI, Leilani initially expressed some concern about its addition to the music world, and we eventually came to the same conclusion I’ve heard from other artists: AI cannot do what an actual live performer can do. Period! Whooooo are we going to see onstage with AI music, people? Holograms?!
Side note: I mentioned it feeling kinda like a Milli Vanilli scenario, and she had NO IDEA who Milli Vanilli was, lol. Hurt. My. Feelings.
Leilani’s band consists of Robert Keene on keyboards, Craig Cootsona on drums, and Leilani on vocals and guitar. They recently opened for DB Stewart at New Frontier Lounge on August 22, and she’s got an upcoming solo gig on September 5 at The Poet, inside Manuscript.
Right now, jazz is the pocket that Raegan Leilani is usually sitting in, but we also talked about her moving into other genres and branching out. That’s something I appreciate more and more these days: Artists don’t have to be pigeonholed into just one thing anymore. They can explore, experiment, and express themselves in different ways, and audiences are increasingly willing to go along for the ride. Especially when the artist has something worth following.
All in all, I know for a FACT that I will be rolling up on Leilani and her band in the near future. Their music is thoughtful, relevant, fresh, and very, very good, and she has the kind of voice that made me stop scrolling, listen . . . and then listen again.
In a world where we consume music almost as quickly as we can swipe past it, an artist who makes you stop scrolling is saying something. One who makes you go out of your way to bring their music back to your feed? That’s an artist you want to hear more from, both now and in the future.
You can find Raegan Leilani at raeganleilani.com and @raeganleilani on the socials.
