Raveenas New Song Rush Is a Dance-Driven, Acid-Fueled Ode to Bollywood

The song and video follow a Punjabi space princess making friends on distant planets

While Raveena is known for gauzy R&B drawn out with her air-light voice, her new track “Rush” is an upbeat, dance-driven feast of colors that mashes multiple worlds together: The Technicolor ode to Bollywood, which tells the story of a Punjabi princess traveling through space, was inspired by Indian percussion and an acid trip Raveena took while checking out an Eastern sound installation at the Rubin Museum.

The song was written a few years ago and captures what Raveena calls an exploration of “a more intense marriage between Bollywood sounds and the pop/R&B music” she grew up on. In the video, which she co-directed with the director and photographer Munachi Osegbu, Raveena plays a character she came up with called Asha, a Punjabi space princess who makes friends with the highly intelligent beings from a distant planet. They appear in the video as shimmery puddle-like figures who back Raveena up as she pulls off playful choreography. At the end of their dance sequences, the song gently transitions into a delicate ballad, buoyed by the singer’s layered vocals.

After releasing her debut album Lucid in 2019, Raveena dropped the four-song EP Moonstone. Last year, she released the twinkling single “Tweety.”