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 have a way of giving shape to these leaps, cliff jumps, and trust falls. 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 to a fully grown 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 for the 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 other, more stereotypically Black genres. McRae looked to her songwriting heroes—Alicia Keys, Carole King, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder—to build a sonic world all her own. As her audience grew and myriad doors began unlocking, it “became 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! takes place against the backdrop of romantic turbulence and McRae’s rapidly growing audience. “I had never been in love before,” McRae said, “not really. And then I had two life-altering relationships back to back in my early twenties. This album is primarily an exploration about how love and intimacy knock the wind out of you, can take your legs out from under you.” She has also had multiple viral moments; the most recent was in 2023, when McRae posted a solo verse and chorus online—little more than a piece of a demo—and it took off. Covers, duets, and an avalanche of new fans followed (including the likes of Justin Bieber, Stormzy, and Dan Nigro, to name a few). The song became the beginning of “Massachusetts,” which would become her first Dead Oceans release.
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 do 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,” she continues, “to be seen and to help others feel seen. But I remain somewhat misunderstood.”
