5X GRAMMY WINNING ARTIST LALAH HATHAWAY ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM MADE IN CHICAGO
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Five-time GRAMMY Award-winning soul singer, songwriter, and producer Lalah Hathaway announces her new album MADE IN CHICAGO, along with her new single “Can’t Let Go”. Rooted in warm, intimate, soulful vocals, MADE IN CHICAGO grew out of a single image. Hathaway saw herself in a leather coat, looking out at Lake Michigan with the Chicago skyline in the distance — and from there, a flood of music came back to her, music that echoed her childhood in the city. “I feel these songs live at the intersection of nostalgia and melancholy,” she says. Across nine tracks, the album traces her Chicago upbringing: riding the bus to school with a Walkman toggled to stereo, absorbing everything from Earth, Wind & Fire to Queen to Stevie Wonder without ever thinking in genres; reimagining her past while pointing toward what’s next. Hathaway made the album with longtime collaborator and co-producer Phil Beaudreau, with contributions from saxophonists Amber Navran (Moonchild) and Hailey Niswanger and flutist Elena Pinderhughes rounding out its world.
“Can’t Let Go” is in Hathaway’s words her “quiet storm”. A slow-burning ballad about holding on to a love she can’t quite release, even when she’s not sure it’s coming back (“Only time will tell if you and I are really meant to be / but I still believe in the way we used to be”). It’s built on what Hathaway calls “sense memories”: not specific moments, but the feeling of them. She’s pointed to Quiet Storm radio, the format that carried Norman Connors and Glenn Jones and later shaped Anita Baker and Luther Vandross, as the song’s direct ancestor: familiar terrain, but with her own modern pull to it.
Earlier this month, Hathaway released “47th Street” , the album’s first single and its emotional blueprint. The song traces the Great Migration that brought Hathaway’s own family north to Chicago’s Southside, and roots itself in her grandfather Hosea’s block: Sunday dinners, streetlights, a neighborhood that raised her. J. Ivy’s verses widen the lens to Bronzeville’s Black renaissance, while Hathaway’s hook makes the personal claim explicit: “You can occupy these streets / but you can’t evict what lives in me.”
The daughter of Donny Hathaway, Lalah Hathaway had soul, jazz, and R&B as second nature, and carved her own lane from the start. She landed a record deal while still at Berklee College of Music and scored her first hit, “Heaven Knows” off her 1990 self-titled debut. Across eight studio albums since, through 2024’s VANTABLACK, her smooth, deep low register and vulnerable songwriting have earned her a catalog of milestones: a #1 live cover of Luther Vandross’ “Forever, For Always, For Love” in 2004; a Grammy-nominated Top 10 album in Self Portrait; and a live cover of Anita Baker’s “Angel” that hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay chart 11 years after its release. She shares the record for most Best Traditional R&B Performance Grammys with Beyoncé, and her live collaboration with Snarky Puppy on “Something” remains a showcase for her scatting and rare polyphonic technique, which Jennifer Hudson has said “no one else is capable of doing.” She’s shared stages with Prince, Stevie Wonder, and Herbie Hancock, and worked with artists from Chaka Khan and Kendrick Lamar to Robert Glasper and Moonchild — a career built on a voice that keeps classic R&B’s heartbeat alive while raising the bar for jazz and soul vocalists everywhere.
LIVE DATES
September 5th, 2026 – Columbus, OH – CBus Soul Festival
September 12th, 2026 – Chicago, IL – 79th Street Renaissance Festival
September 18th, 2026 – Boston, MA – Berklee School of Music
September 19th, 2026 – Boston, MA – Berklee School of Music
September 20th, 2026 – Pittsburgh, PA – Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival
September 25th, 2026 – Meridian, MS – MSU Riley Center
September 26th, 2026 – Mableton, GA – Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre
October 2nd, 2026 – Charleston, SC – Charleston Music Hall
October 3rd, 2026 – Orlando, FL – Judson’s Live
October 4th, 2026 – Orlando, FL – Judson’s Live
October 7th, 2026 – Charlotte, NC – Knight Theatre
October 8th, 2026 – Alexandria, VA – The Birchmere
October 9th, 2026 – Alexandria, VA – The Birchmere
October 11th, 2026 – New York, NY – Blue Note w/Glasper
October 24th, 2026 – Napa, CA – Blue Note Summer Sessions
November 7th, 2026 – November 10th, 2026 – 2026 Soul Train Cruise
November 13th, 2026 – Hampton, VA – Annual Jazz Legacy Foundation Festival
November 15th, 2026 – New York, NY – Sony Hall
November 16th, 2026 – Annapolis, MD – Maryland Hall by Rams Head
December 10th, 2026 – Detroit, MI – Motor City Casino
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