Shanin Blake

Blake was raised in Bluffdale, Utah, after moving there from Idaho as a child. Her mother was a singer-songwriter and vocational counselor, while her father worked as a contract pilot. Her parents divorced during her childhood, and Blake has described music as a refuge from an abusive and chaotic home environment.

She began writing songs when she was young and wrote her first song at 14 after a breakup. She later taught herself guitar and performed at Mojo’s, an all-ages music and coffee venue in Ogden, Utah, where she spent much of her later teenage years. At 17, she became pregnant with her daughter, Juniper Rhythm, and moved into her mother’s basement with her infant daughter at 18. She worked various jobs, attended massage school, and later traveled to Humboldt County to trim cannabis while caring for Juniper.

Blake developed as a self-taught musician, learning guitar, drums, production, and vocals by ear. Her influences range from 1960s psychedelic music and classic jazz to folk, rap, R&B, and dream pop. She has cited artists including Jack Johnson, Billie Eilish, Erykah Badu, Fiona Apple, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Verzache as influences on her playing, singing, or songwriting.

She used Kickstarter to fund her first album, Soul Child, and continued releasing music independently. Her song “Stop, Wait a Minute” gained attention in the San Diego music scene after she moved to California in 2019. Her wider breakthrough came through social media, particularly with “Nature Song,” “Energy Vampires,” and “Bad Btch Energy.” She sold out her first headline performance in Denver in 2023 and embarked on a national tour in 2024. Her later releases include the album Divine Dopamine.

Blake calls her style “affirmation music,” describing it as self-empowering music influenced by ideas such as manifestation, meditation, self-love, and the law of attraction. Her sound often places whispered or ethereal vocals over lo-fi hip-hop, dream-pop, and neo-soul-inspired arrangements. She produces her music independently and draws heavily on personal experiences and spiritual concepts.

“Nature Song” helped establish her viral online presence after she said she mixed and mastered the track herself in about an hour. “Peru Song” grew from her account of an ayahuasca and San Pedro experience in Peru, including lyrics about healing a kidney infection through the mind. Blake has emphasized that the song expresses her own experience and is not intended to tell listeners to replace medical treatment. Her distinctive dreadlocks, bohemian styling, and spiritual themes have also prompted criticism and debate about cultural appropriation, while her audience has expanded across social platforms.