Lekan

Lekan is a Nigerian American R&B singer whose work sets throwback soul singing against contemporary production. He was born in Brooklyn in 1996 to a family that had immigrated from Nigeria and was raised in Columbus, Ohio, where his father, a choir director, introduced him to music; he later moved to Los Angeles, where he has been based for several years. He began releasing singles in 2023, among them Familiar, and issued his debut EP, So You Know, in June 2024 through At The Studio and ByTheWay with Human Re Sources. The six-track set is framed as a tribute to Columbus: its opening track, 614, takes the city's area code as its title, and the EP was dated 14 June to match. Brand New was among the other singles drawn from it. The producer Bongo ByTheWay is his principal collaborator and was one of the first industry figures to back his work. Lekan has described working slowly and spending long stretches in the studio shaping individual songs, and cites jazz and Anita Baker as what he listens to before performing. In 2024 he opened a nine-show run on Tems' Born in the Wild world tour, and in 2026 he is touring North America on the Vacancy tour alongside Ari Lennox and Phabo, which opened in April.

Official site

Past shows