Vocalist Aléa Lorén radiates a healing energy brought about by her own restorative journey and infuses powerful conviction into her neo soul artistry. She describes her music as “soul, R&B, jazz, conscious, reflective, inspirational slaps.” Her live performances both empower audiences and inspire them to dance.

Born into a musical family in Portland, Oregon, music captivated Aléa as a young girl. She sang her first solo when she grabbed the church mic and sang “He’s Alright with Me” on key before she was even two years old. She was constantly immersed in music as her father served as the minister of music, and her mother sang and majored in music at Howard. “Everybody loved watching my father direct the choir because he had so much energy,” she fondly recalls. Her parents also had foster children, so she “grew up in an environment with multiple inherited siblings” and a total of eleven people in their household. Her two brothers Alvin Johnson, Jr. (keyboard) and AJ Johnson (drums) also pursued music and now play in her band.

As Aléa grew older, she fell in love with gospel music (taking inspiration from Karen Clark Sheard of the Clark Sisters) and consistently sang in church service. Life did not go according to plan though. Her beloved grandmother passed away when Aléa was sixteen, prompting her to write a song, which would end up being her last song for several years. She married young, started a family, ran a daycare, and grew apart from people she was close to. “It was a hard time” she admits, “and I think (singing in church) was my therapy at that point. It can be good because, come on, that's a healthy coping skill. That is good. But sometimes if you have a toothache, you need to go to the dentist, and I needed to go to the dentist.”

While she still draws from her gospel roots, Aléa’s next musical chapter would weave together broader musical influences. Listening to female vocalists Erykah Badu, Beyoncé, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Jazmine Sullivan, India Arie, and Fantasia helped Aléa to find her own voice, but she notes two male artists as a template for her career. She’s a fan of organist Cory Henry, who inspired her to develop her craft in other genres. She also takes after her father as a James Brown fan. She admires Brown’s “showmanship, his ear, and his musicianship” and says, “the horns were just as in the pocket as the drums.” These influences and her resonance with lyrical themes of personal resiliency shaped the artist she would become.

Aléa’s musical experiences outside of church are also part of what gave her confidence to set out as an artist. As a teen, Aléa sang in the choir at Thomas Jefferson High School, a highly regarded arts magnet school. Later, friends from Jeff were some of the greatest champions of her budding music career. She had toured with community gospel choirs Kingdom Sound and Das PHAT. She is also passionate about theater, having performed in Showboat with Portland Opera in 2015, Rent with Portland Center Stage in 2022, and Black Nativity with PassinArt annually for the last several years.

With the urging of her brothers and the encouragement of some of Portland’s most highly regarded musicians such as Saeeda Wright, Brian Foxworth, Farnell Newton, and Tyrone Hendrix, Aléa put a band together and debuted in 2022 under the name Church Girl at one of the Pacific Northwest’s premier jazz clubs, The 1905. “We sold out,” she recalls. “There were people standing outside dancing, and I just said, ‘I did it.’ I was like, ‘Let's do it again.’ I sang some songs that addressed some of the things that people said I couldn't do. It was lovely.” With the band now officially launched, musicians rotated in and out, and bassist Ian Lindsay and guitarist Keenan Dorn became key members. They continued performing at The 1905 and established a residency at the Alberta Street Pub in Portland. Aléa also sang at tribute concerts for Chaka Khan, Brandy, and Mary J. Blige and sang background vocals for saxophonist Eldon T Jones at a sold-out 2024 Portland Jazz Festival concert at The Old Church Concert Hall.

To write and record her first single, Aléa collaborated with Farnell Newton who composed and produced what would become “The Self-Love Anthem” (released April 2024). He sent her the music, and three days later, she responded to him with lyrics. “It was like breathing life into it,” Aléa reflects. The cover photo of herself as a young girl emphasizes the song’s perspective of, “Dear Me, You’re the love of my life,” and she notes the theme is “loving me in ways that other people might not even have the capacity to.” This process of self-reflection led her to shed the Church Girl moniker and go by Aléa Lorén.

With her eyes set on the future, Aléa pauses to reflect on how far she’s already come. “I have the crowd’s trust because I'm authentic, and I'm talking about things you can't talk about at church. But those were all real experiences that I had to process through, so it's an integral part of my music. Somebody told me, ‘Oh, I can just hear the hurt and the pain in your voice when you're singing. You're a great performer.’ And I think it’s an outlet. It's not really a performance.”

Aléa is currently preparing to release her first music video and is writing new lyrics to release her first EP, which her fans expect to be as vulnerable and life-giving as “The Self-Love Anthem” and her live performances. Aléa aspires to sing for new audiences, gifting them with the empowering healing of her music.