Raveena Aurora

Aurora is Indian Punjabi American; her family immigrated to Queens from Punjab, India, after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in which her maternal uncle was killed, and her family's business was burned down.

She was raised in a traditional Sikh household.

As a child, she started writing poetry.

She became exposed to R&B, Soul, Jazz and Folk music in middle school, which piqued her interest in music and influenced her musical style later in life.

At the age of 11, she started singing and would sing in the bathroom for hours a day, also studying how to use her voice and use it as an instrument.

Her first performance was at sixth grade in a talent show where she performed "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas.

Soon her passion eventually became a decision to pursue music professionally.

She said, "I was pretty set on it, honestly. Since I was really young, I knew that there weren't any other options for me."

Although her parents were initially "very hesitant" that she wanted to pursue a music career, they always supported her in developing her music skills.

She has stated that her father was interested in Indian Instruments such as the harmonium and tabla and kept them in their house.

At the age of 12, she wrote her first song and aged 13, Aurora began songwriting and consequently started experimenting music with different genres.

She studied and graduated New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

Aurora mentioned that she would always audition for Broadway musicals but she said that "there were no roles for little Indian girls".

She also mentioned that people told her many times that she could not be expected to sign a record deal if she was an Indian woman and said "It's not gonna work".

She said, "It never became about signing a deal at that point. I was just like, 'I don't need to rely on these things, it's gonna work if it's meant to happen.'" She would also sing for church services.

Raveena Aurora (born September 30, 1993), mononymously known as Raveena, is an American singer-songwriter.

Raveena Aurora was born on September 30, 1993 in Massachusetts to Indian Punjabi immigrants and grew up in Queens, Stamford, Connecticut and moved and grew up in New York when she was 17 and she would visit India regularly.

When she was 18, Aurora independently released her first single and music video, "Grey Eyes" on December 4, 2012, in YouTube.

Along with her old EP, Where We Wander which was released independently on February 19, 2013, but she later made them private.

During the beginning of her career, she was denied by multiple record labels.

She said, "I would have label meetings and people would be like 'We can't sign you, you're brown', to my face they would tell me 'there's no space for you.' I was forced to build the infrastructure myself. I hope that the people who have control over that infrastructure start to support marginalized artists really early on. It's such a hard phase when you're in it, and it breaks a lot of people."

She worked many full-time jobs, like nannying or even had worked at her first job in American Apparel as a sales associate and saved to spend her money to self-fund her music projects.

When she was 21, she met and started working with record producer Everett Orr in 2015.

She and Orr continued releasing singles "You Give Me That", "Johnny It's the Last Time" and "Something's Gotta Give" on SoundCloud in 2016.

She gained a following after her first debut EP, Shanti, was released independently in 2017.

She amassed a sizable online following after the release of her first EP, Shanti in December 2017.

Shanti explored themes of self-love and healing, and blended R&B, soul, and jazz music.

Her debut EP drew praise from Sidney Madden of NPR for her "cool delivery and chill-inducing falsetto runs" and "astute songwriting chops".

She directed several of her own music videos where she displayed her Indian heritage and "rich interiority of women of color like herself".

She also released a bonus track for the EP, "Wherever U Go" on January 12, 2018.

Aurora performed her 2018 single "If Only" on the global music platform, COLORS, in January 2018 in which her popularity rapidly increased.

On June 6, 2018, Aurora announced in social media her first headline tour, Woman is Holy Tour, a reference to her own lyric from the 2018 single "If Only".

In the summer of 2018, she was included in ModCloth's Say It Louder campaign, which aimed to celebrate individuality and strong female icons in music.

She was featured alongside other outspoken female musicians like Lizzo, Awkwafina and Hayley Kiyoko.

In November 2018, she performed at Tyler, The Creator's Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival.

On October 23, 2018, Aurora released a new single, "Temptation" and came out as bisexual.

Her first album, Lucid, was released independently in 2019 and distributed through Empire Distribution which rose to critical acclaim.

In 2020, she released her second EP, Moonstone.

After signing to Warner Records, she released her second album, Asha's Awakening, on February 11, 2022, and was met with positive reviews from critics.

The third track of the EP, "No Better" is included as a soundtrack for the 2020 romantic drama film, All My Life.