R&B Artist Lucky Daye Shares His Summer Fridays Playlist
Welcome to Summer Fridays! We know you work hard. So Teen Vogue is celebrating the end of each week — all summer long — with custom playlists created by artists you know and love.
At the top of the month, Lucky Daye played his first Essence Fest and as one might expect, the R&B artist is still processing: “I don't know how to take it; it's just incredible,” he tells Teen Vogue. And yet somehow he still makes returning to his hometown, New Orleans, to play one of the biggest events in Black music sound so regular and cool. “It's like, ‘I'm home, y'all see me, I see y'all.’ And ain't nothing better than the stage,” he explains.
After some down time, he’ll spend the rest of the summer working on new music and preparing for his upcoming tour. “It's my tour, so I try to envision a limitless set,” he states, “and I want to do every single song so, if I can, I will.”
As far as what Lucky’s listening to, it’s kind of all over the place. He names Whitney Houston, Beyoncé, Joe and Mystikal as all-time favorites and points to Ariana Grande as “one of the coolest singers, ever.” He even mentions Ava Max’s “Sweet but Psycho” admitting, “I know it's off-brand, but I like it.”
His Summer Fridays playlist maintains the same sensibility, spanning decades and genres. “You know you got to start the summer off with Will Smith's ‘Summertime’,” he declares — and agreed! He includes a second 90s classic “Let’s Get Down” by Tony! Toni! Toné!, as well as early aughts middle school dance staples “21 Questions” and “Yeah!” gifted to us by 50 Cent and Usher, respectively.
If you haven’t had the chance to see Lucky in action, his recent Tiny Desk Concert offers an excellent sampling from his debut album, Painted. The opportunity came about randomly while he was on tour with Ella Mai earlier this year. Someone cancelled, he was offered the open slot, and he went for it.
“I was like, ‘Man, I would leave and come do this performance and then pick up the tour in whatever city it's in.’ So that's what we did,” he explains. He brought his own guitar player and drummer and met the rest of the band once he got to D.C. Despite its impromptu nature, the group sounds like they’ve been playing together for years. Reflecting on the experience, “ain't that crazy how you can communicate through music like that? It feels so good to be able to do that.”
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
