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Ella Mai Teases Do You Still Love Me Tour With Bigger Production and New Music
Ella Mai says her Do You Still Love Me tour will feature bigger production as she prepares to bring new songs to the stage.
Ella Mai is already mapping out a bigger live show for her upcoming Do You Still Love Me? tour, and she’s not being coy about it. After performing at this year’s Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival, the Grammy-winning British R&B singer told Billboard that the trek will be the first time she’s leaned into full production in this way.
Mai had just come off a pair of sold-out dates in South Africa before heading to the Caribbean for the World Beats set in Saint Lucia, a stop that doubled as another warm-up for the nearly 40-date run. The tour, which begins July 7 in Toronto, will take her across major cities in the United States, Europe and the U.K., with Ama and Girlfriend joining as support.
It also marks her first tour since welcoming her baby son with NBA star Jayson Tatum, and the Saint Lucia set gave fans a taste of what that next chapter might look like. She moved through early staples like “She Don’t,” the unmistakable “Boo’d Up” and newer material including “Somebody’s Son,” while the crowd got an early preview of how the new songs might land once the tour proper gets rolling.
“This is the first time that we’re doing a production; we want to step it up a bit,” she tells Billboard backstage after her performance. “Most of my shows thus far have concentrated on vocals. And not that we won’t be vocal heavy — because we absolutely will — but, with this album, I wanted to immerse people in my world a little bit more. We’re gonna basically bring that to life on the tour, and I’m excited to get on stage and sing new music and have people sing it back to me. And even if they don’t sing it back to me, this new album means so much to me that being able to share it alone is going to be incredible.”
Do You Still Love Me? arrived in February and opened at No. 44 on the Billboard 200, later climbing to No. 14 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. The 14-track project was executive produced by Mustard and featured the Adult R&B radio singles “Tell Her,” which peaked at No. 26, and “Little Things,” which reached No. 19. It follows Mai’s sophomore album, Heart of My Sleeve, which peaked at No. 15 on the all-genre Billboard 200.
Saint Lucia’s festival lineup reflected just how central R&B has become to the current live circuit. Alongside Mai, the island also hosted Tems and Brandy & Monica, while dancehall-adjacent artists like Dexta Daps, D’yani and Valiant kept R&B tied into the wider Caribbean pulse. The timing also feels right: from Leon Thomas’ “Mutt” and Kehlani’s “Folded” last year to new projects this year from Durand Bernarr (BERNARR.) and Jai’Len Josey (Serial Romantic), the genre has been showing real momentum in the streaming era.
Mai, for her part, sounds like someone watching that shift with both perspective and patience. “It’s just such a great time for the genre, and it’s incredible to see since it gets so much [flak],” she says. “Nobody asks why today’s rock [music] doesn’t sound like the 90s. Every other genre, I feel, is allowed to evolve and become its own thing in its time. I get it — I love ’90s and 2000s R&B, and it’s nostalgic for us because we grew up on it, but there’s a real R&B resurgence going on right now. And it’s always been there, actually, you just might have to look a bit harder than usual.”
The tour may be framed as a new era, but the appeal is still the same one that has carried Mai this far: vocals first, songs that people know by heart, and now, apparently, a little more spectacle.
