Ella Mai Says Her Do You Still Love Me Tour Will ‘Step It Up a Bit’ After Saint Lucia Set

Ella Mai is already treating her next run like a reset. Fresh off a performance at this year’s Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival, the Grammy-winning British R&B singer said her forthcoming Do You Still Love Me Tour will lean into something bigger than the stripped-back vocal focus that has defined most of her shows so far.

Her stop in Saint Lucia came just weeks after a pair of sold-out dates in South Africa, another international step ahead of a tour that will travel through major cities in the United States, Europe and the U.K. The nearly 40-date trek begins July 7 in Toronto and brings along ascendant R&B artists Ama and Girlfriend as support. For Mai, it is also the first tour since she welcomed her baby son with NBA star Jayson Tatum, a detail that gives the new era a different kind of weight without changing the basic facts of what she does onstage: she still moves between early staples like “She Don’t,” the unavoidable “Boo’d Up” and newer cuts such as “Somebody’s Son” with the kind of ease that makes a festival set feel like a preview.

Backstage after the Saint Lucia performance, Mai described the tour as a more fully realized production than audiences have seen from her before. “This is the first time that we’re doing a production; we want to step it up a bit,” she told Billboard. “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.”

The album she is referring to, Do You Still Love Me?, arrived in February and opened at No. 44 on the Billboard 200 before climbing to No. 14 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, helped along by Adult R&B radio singles “Tell Her” and “Little Things,” which peaked at No. 26 and No. 19, respectively. Executive produced by Mustard, the 14-track project followed Heart of My Sleeve, her sophomore album, which reached No. 15 on the all-genre Billboard 200 and has effectively set the bar for what this next chapter needs to do.

Saint Lucia offered a clear picture of where R&B sits right now, and Mai was part of a lineup that made the point without overexplaining it. Tems, Brandy & Monica and a crop of dancehall-leaning acts including Dexta Daps, D’yani and Valiant all helped make the genre one of the festival’s central throughlines. That broader climate matters. From crossover moments like Leon Thomas’ “Mutt” and Kehlani’s “Folded” to newer projects from Durand Bernarr and Jai’Len Josey, R&B has been clawing back space in the streaming era, even if the conversation around it still tends to frame the genre as if it is perpetually in need of saving.

Mai, at least, does not seem interested in that version of the debate. “It’s just such a great time for the genre, and it’s incredible to see since it gets so much [flak],” she said. “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.”