Charlotte’s rising jazz pianist Alanah LeNay has been here all along

November 12, 2026

Just a year ago, few people in Charlotte’s jazz scene knew the name Alanah Butler. Now the pianist, who performs as Alanah LeNay, is a familiar face at the city’s most popular weekly jam sessions, a hometown talent who seemingly surfaced out of nowhere.

Charlotte native Alanah Butler, who performs as Alanah LeNay, was homeschooled for most of her life before studying music at Howard University. In recent months, she has drawn attention online and on the stages of Charlotte’s weekly jazz jams. Photo: Tahj Butler

Butler, a Charlotte native, was homeschooled for most of her life in a busy, talented gospel household alongside her three siblings, Tahj, Tylen and Aniah. But music was just one part of their upbringing. Butler also played tennis, volleyball and soccer, swam, danced and competed in speech and debate, while both of her brothers fenced at the Junior Olympics. Through a homeschool co-op, where families gathered and parents took turns teaching different subjects, she says she never lacked the friendships, activities or creative outlets many people assume homeschooled children miss out on. But her first creative love was acting.

Alanah with her three siblings, Tahj, Tylen and Aniah, and their parents, Tanya and Wayne Butler.

When it came time for college, a music degree wasn’t initially the plan. Butler applied to several HBCUs, mostly for their writing and theater programs. Howard University’s was the only music program she applied to, a decision she said was fully backed by her parents.

Butler on her first day of acting classes as a child. Before studying music at Howard, she planned to pursue acting, writing and film.

“That wasn’t my intention. I wanted to major in and later pursue a career in writing or something within film and television or acting,” she said.

It’s a decision that seems to have paid off. Butler’s improvisational, hip-hop-inflected jazz performances on Instagram and TikTok have caught the ears of some big names, including Grammy-winning pianist Robert Glasper, one of her musical idols; keyboardist and producer PJ Morton; legendary rapper Queen Latifah; and Inglewood lyricist D Smoke.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alanah LeNay (@lenaymusic)

In Charlotte, she now plays regularly at trumpeter and bandleader Braxton Bateman’s Mo’ Betta Thursdays, which has become a cornerstone of the city’s jazz scene, and occasionally performs at the Bill Hanna Legacy Jam, sometimes filling in for pianist Phillip Howe.

Bateman met Butler earlier this year at Petra’s, where she was introduced to him by Malcolm Charles, also known as King Noli, a talented multi-instrumentalist and a staple of the city’s jazz scene. Bateman says her “poetic approach” at the keys instantly caught his ear, and that he was also impressed by her fashion sense.

“She falls right into the night seamlessly, with it being such a spontaneous environment,” he said of her performances at Mo’ Betta Thursdays. “We don’t rehearse or always know what’s next, so it takes an especially skilled person to thrive in that space. She brings her own voice to the music, and that’s something that we value.”

After returning to Charlotte in September 2025 following her graduation from Howard, Butler began exploring the local jazz scene at Petra’s and Eighty Eights. One of the first musicians she met was Ziad Rabie, a longtime fixture of Charlotte jazz. Through Rabie, she connected with Charles, Bateman and Marcus Jones, all influential figures in the city’s growing jazz community.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mo’ Betta Thursdays (@mobettathursdays)

Before she discovered those venues, Butler had no ties to Charlotte’s music community beyond the church stages and family band she grew up playing in.

“I wasn’t thinking about music much. I didn’t know anybody in the music scene,” Butler said. “I knew nothing about Jazz Arts Charlotte. Otherwise, that’s a program I definitely would’ve been involved in.”

Howard University: Walking through history and meeting Stevie Wonder

Howard gave Butler four transformative years at one of the nation’s leading historically Black universities. The school has a rich legacy of academic, cultural and musical influence, with alumni including North Carolina native Roberta Flack, whom Butler met before Flack’s death in 2025, as well as Donny Hathaway, Jessye Norman, Richard Smallwood, Kenny Lattimore and Meshell Ndegeocello, among countless others.

At Howard University, she spent four transformative years studying jazz piano and the music business, learning marketing from Autumn McDonald, entertainment law from jazz keyboardist Marcus Johnson, jazz history from Saïs Kamalidiin, and piano from acclaimed jazz pianist and composer Cyrus Chestnut. Photo: Tahj Butler

There, she had to learn to read music and study jazz from the ground up after spending her adolescence playing mostly gospel by ear. The experience shaped her as a musician and put her in rooms she never imagined.

“Every day it was just like, ‘Wow… I’m walking through history,’” she said of roaming the yard and the halls of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, which was renamed for the late actor and Howard alumnus in 2021, her freshman year.

Howard’s tight-knit alumni network and steady stream of visiting artists brought her face to face with Pete Rock, Common, gospel icon Twinkie Clark and many other influential figures in music.

Howard also took Butler’s musical education far beyond the classroom, with trips to Dakar, Senegal; Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa; and Victoria Falls and Harare, Zimbabwe, that gave her a broader view of music as a global language. Photo: Tahj Butler

But one encounter stands above the rest.

One day, Butler arrived at her professor Cyrus Chestnut’s office for a lesson. Instead of starting, he told her to follow him. “There’s somebody I want you to meet,” he said.

He led her to a conference room, where she was the only student at a round table of music faculty. Then Stevie Wonder walked in. Butler said the music legend was on campus because his son Mandla, now a Howard student, was considering the university.

Butler met Stevie Wonder at Howard, introduced by jazz pianist, composer and professor Cyrus Chestnut. Wonder also attended one of her church performances with Howard’s community choir. Photo: Benita Gladney

“My professor [Chesnut] introduced us, and I was like, ‘Hello, Stevie. It’s such an honor to meet you. You are such an inspiration to me,’” Butler said.

The next day, her phone rang.

“I had a church gig… and I got a call. And on the other line, it was Stevie Wonder, and he said, ‘Alanah, where’s your church gig?’”

Wonder showed up at the Baptist church where Butler was playing with Howard’s community choir. He slipped into a back pew alongside his son and a Howard fine arts adviser, then stayed for nearly the entire performance before quietly leaving just before it ended.

“Everybody who was in the choir was looking like, ‘There’s no way Stevie Wonder just walked into this,’” she said.

It’s a moment she’ll never forget, and a quiet confirmation that she was right where she belonged.

But her Howard experience wasn’t just about rubbing shoulders with musical and cultural icons. Butler also got real-world training in the ever-evolving music business. She learned marketing from her primary professor, Autumn McDonald, an anthropologist and market researcher who co-coordinates Howard’s music business program. She studied entertainment law with Marcus Johnson, a Billboard-charting, NAACP Image Award-nominated jazz keyboardist and pianist in his own right. And she honed her playing under Chestnut, an acclaimed jazz pianist, composer and educator whose career includes collaborations with Wynton Marsalis, Betty Carter and Dizzy Gillespie.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alanah LeNay (@lenaymusic)

Howard also took Butler’s musical education far beyond the classroom. During her sophomore year, she traveled to Dakar, Senegal, with Professor Saïs Kamalidiin, who teaches jazz history and ethnomusicology. The trip gave her a chance to explore music and culture beyond American traditions. The following year, she joined him again on a trip to Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa, and Victoria Falls and Harare in Zimbabwe. In Harare, students visited the Zimbabwe School of Music for a closer look at the country’s music education. Together, the trips gave Butler a broader view of music as a global language shaped by different histories and cultures.

“I was nervous, but it was a really warm and inviting environment,” she said. “One thing I really did realize is that music is so universal. We can get up and be in any environment, even with a language barrier, and play the same song, be on one accord. It was really beautiful.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alanah LeNay (@lenaymusic)

Journey EP, a growing social media following and what’s next

Butler wrote the songs for her debut EP, Journey, while preparing for her senior recital, creating every track between fall 2024 and spring 2025. The four compositions offer just a glimpse of the young pianist’s talents. Across the EP, Butler moves easily between intricate arrangements and loose, open-ended grooves that leave room to stretch out. The lone vocal track, “Joy Will Follow,” features her sister Aniah’s vocals over lyrics Butler wrote herself, and “Pirogue” draws on the Senegalese film La Pirogue and her own time walking the streets of Dakar.

“I wasn’t planning on fully releasing it. You know how we as musicians, or just as individuals, nitpick about our work. I didn’t think it was ‘professional’ level,” she recalled. “But I later realized and understood that this project is an opportunity to showcase my journey. This is the start of my musical career, it’s the beginning.”

As a composer, arranger and producer, Butler pairs pure musical passion with a hunger to experiment and evolve, but she’s taking her time.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alanah LeNay (@lenaymusic)

With a growing social media following and the attention of some of today’s most respected artists, Butler doesn’t seem anxious to rush into the spotlight. She says she’s genuinely enjoying the creative path, and for now, she’s content to be a “supporting band member” while she continues to explore different genres.

“I feel like that’s important first, before being a popular solo act, at least for me,” she said. “I’m still very much studying straight-ahead and improving in that, but venturing to my own sound and adapting gospel and jazz and R&B. Being in an environment like Mo’ Betta encourages that.”

Butler may seem to have appeared out of nowhere, but she’s been a Charlottean all along. And now that she’s found her place in the city’s jazz community, she has one wish for it.

“There’s just so many great and talented musicians,” she said. “I would just love to see them being highlighted as much as possible.”

Follow Alanah LeNay on Instagram and TikTok, and stream her debut project, Journey, on Spotify and Apple Music.

CLTure Weekly Events Guide

What’s happening in Charlotte this week?

Concerts, festivals, food, comedy and free events, updated every week.

Check out this week’s events →

Charlotte’s rising jazz pianist Alanah LeNay has been here all along — now the stage has found her

Howard University: Walking through history and meeting Stevie Wonder

Journey EP, a growing social media following and what’s next