Keiynan Lonsdale Looks Inward On Debut Album‘Rainbow Boy,’ Out Today (5.29)

“fresh and lively, with songs that celebrate queerness, Blackness, and joy” - Teen Vogue

Today, Keiynan Lonsdale releases his debut album Rainbow Boy, his love letter to the queer, black community as well as to his younger self. Equipped with a polychromatic, retro-futuristic R&B flair and innovative pop, this 14-track album is a show-stopping display of inclusivity that “gives us hope for what pop music can do” (GQ UK).

Co-produced and co-written alongside Louis Futon, Keiynan is unapologetic across Rainbow Boy. From the album’s overture (“We are the Children”), he offers a safe place to embrace and celebrate each and every part of yourself, even the parts that are different or marginalized. Elsewhere on the album, Keiynan addresses some timely and deeply-personal topics.

Fueled by 2018’s H&M ‘Monkeygate,’ “White Noise” is filled with free-flowing groove and layered with effects that call to mind his community’s detrimental stereotypes as he seeks to reclaim his blackness. On the album’s previously released single “Gay Street Fighter” he takes on a warrior-like persona to rally the LGBTQ+ community against bigotry. There’s the Prince-like drum machine sheen that drives “Rhythm & Music.” The tender “Chocolate,” with its Sunday morning shine, is juxtaposed with the darker, moodier, and internalized “Magic Mickey.” “I Confess My Love” perfectly embodies his “ASMR baritone” (GQ UK) as he seeks the truth in a tumultuous relationship, while on “Rainbow Dragon” Keiynan “flexes his rap skills to let his detractors know who's in charge” (Billboard).

Stream / order 'Rainbow Boy' here: keiynanlonsdal e.ffm.to/rainbowboy

Keiynan is already the face at the forefront of queer Hollywood. He’s starred in Love, Simon (for which he won an MTV Movie Award), The Divergent Series, CW’s The Flashand Legends Of Tomorrow (one of the first openly queer actors to play a superhero), judged on RuPaul’s Drag Race and more, including the Alicia Keys-produced dance comedy, Work It. Lonsdale has won GQ Australia’s “Actor of the Year” and an LGBT Centre Youth Advocacy Award. In 2019, he made his Paris Fashion Week runway debut with Louis Vuitton. He walked the 2019 MET Gala pink carpet in a custom gown covered in over a thousand handmade, embroidered butterflies, created by Indian designer Manish Arora (Katy Perry, Rihanna, Kate Moss).

‘RAINBOW BOY’ TRACKLIST:

1. We are the Children

2. Gay Street Fighter

3. Magic Mickey

4. Destiny Road

5. Ancient One (feat. Project Peters)

6. Rhythm & Music

7. White Noise

8. Rainbow Dragon

9. I Confess My Love

10. Mirror

11. Chocolate