JENSEN MCRAE – God Has A Hitman Tour

About Jensen McRae:

Jensen McRae could’ve been down for the count.

“The most profound choices of my life,” she says, “have often felt like things I did before I was ready to do, and I had to grow into them.” McRae’s songs give shape to these leaps — cliff jumps and trust falls — and on her new album, I Don’t Know How But They Found Me!, Jensen McRae goes further than ever, evolving from a promising young artist into a fully formed songwriter and star.

“It’s about realizing what you can’t outrun, and what follows when you have withstood what you thought might crush you,” she explains. “There are things that can happen to us — unthinkable, untenable things — that threaten our safety in our own bodies. They happen, and you feel like the only option is escape. In truth, the only way out is in — back into the place you have always lived.”

The home — with Jensen front and center, possibly leaving, possibly arriving — adorns the artwork for I Don’t Know How But They Found Me!. “You can leave the city, you can leave the lover,” McRae continues, “but you can never leave yourself.”

From the very beginning, fans have fallen in love with Jensen McRae for her sharp, evocative, and clear-eyed songwriting. An avid journaler, McRae has been breathlessly documenting her existence since she was 18. Her first album, Are You Happy Now?, was a mission statement from an artist who grew up an automatic outsider: a Black Jewish girl from Los Angeles, hellbent on making folk music in spite of the world’s attempts to box her into more stereotypically Black genres.

Looking to songwriting heroes like Alicia Keys, Carole King, James Taylor, and Stevie Wonder, McRae built a sonic world entirely her own. As her audience grew and new doors unlocked, the album became, as she puts it, “the record of my coming-of-age. But it was a quiet coming-of-age, one that mostly took place inside my own head.”

I Don’t Know How But They Found Me! unfolds against a backdrop of romantic turbulence and a rapidly growing audience. “I had never been in love before,” McRae says. “Not really. And then I had two life-altering relationships back to back in my early twenties. This album is primarily an exploration of how love and intimacy knock the wind out of you — how they can take your legs out from under you.”

The record arrives alongside multiple viral moments, most notably in 2023, when McRae posted a solo verse and chorus online — little more than a demo fragment — and it took off. Covers, duets, and an avalanche of new fans followed, including Justin Bieber, Stormzy, and Dan Nigro. That moment marked the beginning of “Massachusetts,” which would become her first release with Dead Oceans.

I Don’t Know How But They Found Me! also reaffirms McRae’s defiance of expectations, as she deepens her singer-songwriter bona fides and claims space for young Black women in the genre.

“I do still feel like I’m pushing a boulder up a hill,” she says. “I know that in spite of my success and hard work, I still hit walls that aren’t there for other people — and that it’s because I’m working in a space that doesn’t already allow for people who look like me. It’s connected to why I make music: to be seen, and to help others feel seen. But I remain somewhat misunderstood.”