MUSIC
JUST FOR NOW
Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area as the son of a musician, Stevie Ray came up playing guitar in rock bands before discovering hip hop through freestyle battles on the bus to high school football games.
What followed was a cross-country move, a period of isolation, and a philosophy built on self-belief and radical love for other people. The result is callmestevieray — lyrical, soulful, and entirely his own.
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Just For Now (2025), is a 10-track project that continues to push the edges of what West Coast underground hip hop can feel like. With nearly a million monthly listeners on Spotify, the audience is clearly catching up to where Stevie Ray has always been headed.
ABOUT
Callmestevieray is a Bay Area-bred rapper and songwriter who found his voice the old-fashioned way — on the bus, battle rapping with teammates on the way to high school football games. It was an unlikely beginning for an artist whose music would eventually become something far more interior and philosophical.
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After years playing guitar in rock bands and growing restless under the ceiling that seemed to exist for every musician around him, Stevie left the Bay Area for Los Angeles in search of something bigger. What he found instead was more of the same — a scene heavy with competition and a defeatist energy he couldn't shake.
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So he went inward. In solitude, he found belief in himself, freedom in thought, and an unwavering love for the people around him. He reunited with his old rock bandmate André Paxton, and together they built that philosophical landscape into a sonic one.
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The music that emerged draws from the full depth of hip hop's tradition — raised on A Tribe Called Quest and J Dilla — and filters it through a lens that's personal, reflective, and honest. His sound blends introspective lyricism with melodic, upbeat production, and his catalog includes collaborations with artists like Blimes Brixton, The Palmer Squares, and Owl Green.
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His most recent album, Just For Now (2025), is a 10-track project that continues to push the edges of what West Coast underground hip hop can feel like. With nearly a million monthly listeners on Spotify, the audience is clearly catching up to where Stevie Ray has always been headed.
