Ari Lennox

Courtney Shanade Salter (born March 26th, 1991) is better known under her stage name Ari Lennox is an American singer and songwriter from Washington, D.C. She is the first female artist to be affiliated with J. Cole's label Dreamville Records. Her first single was released with the label on October 21 of 2016, entitled Pho, and she was able to begin gaining attention. Her first album Shea Butter Baby was released on May 7 2019. Ari Lennox started uploading her music on the internet in 2012 as she launched her debut mixtape called Five Finger Discount and debut EP Ariography, in 2013. In 2014 she continued to release her music on the web including her self released single Bound. On the 21st of July in 2015, she appeared on Omen's album Elephant Eyes in the song Sweat it Out. Her songs were circulating among the Dreamville group as J. Cole wanted her to work with him on some potential references to Rihanna. She officially was signed by Dreamville Records on 8 December. Backseat is a track that she performed with Cozz in her Revenge of the Dreamers II collaboration album. Then, in October 2016, she released her first EP, Pho. Ari Lennox later appeared on J. Cole's song Change and was an opener on the 4 Your Eyez Only Tour in the year 2017. In 2018, she was able to appear on two tracks with her label-mates EarthGang on Nothing but the Best and Bas on Icarus. On July 16 2018 Ari Lennox released the first single, Whipped Cream from her debut album Shea Butter Baby with an accompanied music video on the 5th of September. In November, the singer released the singles 40 Shades of Choke & Grampa. On November 13 she then dropped two singles titled One and Pedigree. One and Pedigree. They then collaborated to the Creed II soundtrack with Cole on a track entitled Shea Butter Baby on November 16th. She released the single on February 26 2019 for her debut album the same title. In February of 2019 she released a music video released for the song. It's already received 3 million hits on YouTube within the first week. In December 2018, she performed as a supporting act on The From East Atlanta With Love Tour with 6LACK.