The music industry might be upside down in 2026, but one formula that has proved tried and true is the transition from studio to the stage. An emerging artist releases an album, plays it in small venues, like clubs, and as the album grows in popularity the venues expand in size. That would have been perfect for R&B songstress Baby Rose, whose stunning “Yearnalism” album, released earlier this year to rave reviews, is built for intimate audiences. The record, a gorgeous collection of songs about yearning — for love, self, art, everything — is meant to be shared in a small room.
But something funny happened on the way to the stage. Rose was invited to open for Olivia Dean’s arena tour. So, the very intimate “Yearnalism” has already been to places like Crypto.com Arena here in L.A. and Madison Square Garden in New York. However, Rose will finally be debuting the material in the type of venue it was always meant for when she plays four shows across two nights Wednesday and Thursday at Blue Note Los Angeles. She’ll follow that later in October with the same at Blue Note New York.
Not only are these her first intimate shows with the new material, but she excitedly points out they are also her first headlining shows in L.A.
Baby Rose
(Amaya Segura)
“I love the intimacy. And yeah, I’m coming from the first times that I’ve played ‘Yearnalism’ were in arenas. I’m really excited to bring forth the spirit of what this album’s intention always was, which is community and just being able to take away that fourth wall a little bit, let people feel like they’re not alone. So, I get to elaborate on some songs. I get to do songs that I wasn’t able to do on Olivia’s set and really get into the whys of it all,” she says.
Don’t misunderstand. Rose is incredibly grateful for the incredible experience and enormous audiences she shared with her friend, Dean. She calls the whole process “summer camp.”
“It was just giving sisterhood. From her to everyone down to her team, that’s the part that I loved so much about this tour is just how gracious they were. It was like family,” she says. “And there were all these little things that would be on the tour stops that were extra events like puppies at different stops and, ‘Oh, today we’re making bracelets today, we’re making perfume, we’re making a candle.’ MJ, who is her tour producer, would set up all of these little things so when we come to the venue it’s like inner child work. I got my first tattoo. There was a tattoo artist there. I’m like, ‘Damn, tour is really fun.’ It healed a lot in me.”
Musically, seeing the response of thousands of fans every night also proved to be excellent on the job training Rose found.
“I changed the set list a couple times during the tour, just trying to read the room of the audience and seeing people that were there with maybe their boyfriend or girlfriend. They’re there and I’m like, ‘I can’t just speak solely to heartbreak and yearning. It has to also talk about love. That’s a big part of desire, love and all of that.’ So, adding ‘The Reason’ and ‘Is This Love’ into the set was a big thing and letting it dedicate to love that is sustaining and getting through it, the highs and the lows,” she says.
For Rose, who has seen amazing compliments like Dean inviting her on tour, rapper-turned-podcaster Joe Budden telling his podcast audience how much he loved the record, and President Obama placing “Friends Again” on his summer playlist (she says, laughing, “He knows who I am?”), she is well aware of the possibility of being nominated for a Grammy. But the greatest gift for her remains when her fans find and relate to the songs. “It means the world to me. It means that they’re living and growing and processing and evolving and falling down and picking themselves back up just like I am to the music.”
When she says she is living the music the same as her audience, she is not just saying that to score points with her listeners. She recently ended a relationship and is planning on moving to New York. So, she is undergoing the same journey, which she proudly points out.
“It’s evolving as I’m evolving. And I’m evolving at a state of whiplash right now. Sometimes I’m like, ‘Damn, a lot going on.’ All of the things are happening and I’m very grateful for that. But I do see yearning as more of a practice than a theory these days. I’m single now, so we’re back in the g— wild west with it,” she says. “So, I’m like, ‘Let me remind myself after being in a relationship for so long, breathe. It’s about me right now, it’s about taking my time.’ But I also am a yearner and I love love. Yeah, I’ve done went from the professor to the student again. That’s where I’m at in my life.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: latimes.com
