Raleigh Ritchie’s Debut Album, ‘You’re a Man Now, Boy,’ Turns 10

Growing up rarely feels as easy as we think it will. As kids, we assume we’ll have everything figured out by our twenties, only to get there and realize we may understand less than we ever did. Raleigh Ritchie’s 2016 debut, You’re a Man Now, Boy — which turns ten this month — captures that particular kind of overwhelming reality check beautifully.

Raleigh Ritchie is, of course, the musical moniker of actor Jacob Anderson (Game of Thrones, Interview with the Vampire). The name itself is borrowed from two characters in Wes Anderson’s 2001 comedy drama The Royal Tenenbaums — Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray) and Richie Tenenbaum (Luke Wilson) — creating a deliberate creative split between Anderson the actor and Ritchie the musician. In keeping with that intention, I’ll stay with Ritchie here.

The rise of Raleigh Ritchie.

Born in Bristol in 1990, Raleigh Ritchie was writing songs long before he was acting. In a 2016 interview with The Guardian, he reflected, “Lessons [in school] didn’t interest me and I used my exercise books as diaries. I’d write pages about how I was feeling and gradually realized I was crafting song lyrics.”

Though acting would later bring the artist global recognition, music was always the starting point. At 16, still credited as Jacob Anderson, he appeared as a vocalist on Typsun’s 2006 track “The PL.” The two collaborated again on “Let Me Know,” which later appeared in the 2008 crime drama Adulthood, in which Anderson also co-starred. Acting and music were already intersecting, even as he worked to keep them professionally distinct.

By 2013, Ritchie had signed with Columbia Records and subsequently released three EPs, quietly building a reputation for emotionally driven, genre-blurring R&B. When You’re a Man Now, Boy arrived in 2016, he was only 25 years old.

Influences and styles.

Often labeled as an R&B artist, that categorization barely contains Raleigh Ritchie. This debut album in particular moves fluidly through R&B, soul, neo-soul, trip-hop, electronica, and cinematic orchestration. His listed inspirations — Erykah Badu, David Bowie, Jill Scott, The Smiths, Stevie Wonder — are eclectic by design. You can hear them in his music, but what stands out most is how distinct his own sound feels. 

Upon release, the album debuted at No. 32 on the UK Albums Chart. Its lead single, “Stronger Than Ever,” peaked at No. 30 on the UK Singles Chart. The song’s music video has since amassed over 13 million views on YouTube. A deluxe edition, released the following month, expanded the original twelve tracks with six additional songs. 

Track by track.

But statistics only tell part of the story. A decade later, the album’s staying power lies in the quiet, creeping panic of adulthood embedded in its title song.

“You’re a Man Now, Boy,” the title track, encapsulates a very specific anxiety: The mid-youth crisis and realization that adulthood arrives whether or not you feel prepared for it. “I loved Jurassic Park, well, I still do/Actually, I’m the same except that now I take a pill or two,” he sings in the first verse. It’s funny, but not really. The line captures the disorienting gap between who we were and who we’re expected to be. The chorus drives the point home with relentless repetition of “You’re a man now, boy,” interrupted by admissions like “I’m not growing up, I’m aging/My mind’s incarcerated/Still a boy,” and “And though this body’s taller/Sometimes I feel smaller/Just a boy.”

Elsewhere, the album runs with similar themes. “Young & Stupid” and “The Greatest” wrestle with insecurity and a sort of self-mythology. “Bloodsport ‘15” and “The Last Romance” trace the intensity and volatility of young love. “Never Say Die,” “The Chased” (with The Internet), and “I Can Change” capture the recklessness and emotional whiplash of youth. Throughout, Ritchie’s voice remains tender but unflinching, and very raw while only a tad melodramatic, as many of us are in our twenties. 

The critics loved it.

Critics recognized it. Billboard featured him; MTV praised the album as “an incredible way to mark the humble beginning of an emotionally honest and sensitive artist on the mainstream stage,” highlighting his “raw-yet-tender style.” The Guardian noted that the “Bristolian’s emotional deliveries bring a compelling vulnerability and humanity to the narrative-verse-to-big-chorus format.” It was a debut that felt intensely personal, yet expansive enough to hint at the artist, and adult, he was still becoming.

A decade later, it’s hard not to wonder how Ritchie hears those songs now. The album’s central anxiety — the fear of aging without truly growing — hits differently at 35 than it does at 25. Is the crisis quieter now? Or is it still precisely where he and so many of us find ourselves, even as life’s expectations continue to mount?

The legacy of You’re a Man Now, Boy.

But You’re a Man Now, Boy isn’t only about getting older. It interrogates masculinity, and the performance of it, through the uneasy pressure of being told you’re a “man” long before you feel equipped for the role. It captures romantic intensity that feels world-ending in your twenties, as well as the reckless bravado that masks insecurity and the bruising vulnerability disguised as confidence. Throughout the album, Raleigh Ritchie oscillates between extreme highs and crushing lows, between wanting to be “the greatest” and admitting he still feels small.

There’s a particular and wonderful kind of honesty in that. The songs don’t stop the crisis, but provide, instead, documentation of it. They sit in the discomfort of becoming — in the space between who you were and who you’re expected to be. And perhaps that’s why the album still resonates ten years later. Not because it offers answers, but because it captures the feeling of not having answers at all.

The future of Raleigh Ritchie.

Since that debut, Ritchie has released one more studio album, Andy (2020), which recently turned five. An accompanying instrumental edition highlighted his evolving production, really focusing on the cinematic textures that have always been a huge part his work. In September 2025, he confirmed via X that his third studio album — title unannounced — is slated for release in 2026.

Ritchie already has a stacked 2026. The third season of his AMC series Interview with the Vampire — subtitled The Vampire Lestat — premieres this summer. A short film, Still Life, is set to begin its festival run. Anderson, or Ritchie, a workaholic by his own admission, rarely slows down.

But ten years on, You’re a Man Now, Boy remains a defining statement. It captured something that doesn’t age out: that the boy doesn’t disappear. Instead, he just learns to carry more.

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Images courtesy of Columbia Records.