In 2021, Raye parted methods together with her label after claiming on social media that she had been held again from releasing an album. Now, she is a record-breaking Brits nominee with a primary single and MOBO and Ivor Novello awards underneath her belt. Right here is our interview with the star from January 2023, wherein she spoke candidly in regards to the struggle to make music on her personal phrases.
Raye is gaining her energy again. Not simply from the trade that made her really feel “mediocre” for therefore a few years, however over previous traumas she saved bottled up for a very long time.
“A few of my closest mates did not even know a few of the stuff I am discussing on my album,” she tells Sky Information. “It is most likely essentially the most trustworthy I have been. It is deep and it is actual.”
Raye, actual title Rachel Eager, is just 25 however already a music trade veteran; a platinum-selling performer and a songwriter with credit for everybody from Charli XCX and Little Combine to John Legend and Beyonce.
She was simply 15 when she launched her first track and 17 when all her desires got here true, within the type of a four-album contract with report label Polydor. However after years of what gave the impression to be a profitable profession as a vocalist collaborating primarily on different artists’ dance hits, in 2021 she posted a string of tweets claiming the label was holding her again from releasing her personal album.
“I am carried out being a well mannered pop star,” she wrote, her frustration and anger palpable. The singer says after years of “attempting to make it work”, she had reached the purpose the place she had nothing to lose. “You get to that breaking level, actually.”
Shortly after her tweets, it was introduced she and Polydor had been parting methods, with the label saying the choice had been “amicable and mutual” and wishing her “all the easiest for the long run”.
Raye claimed her first primary with Escapism at the start of 2023. Pic: Official Charts
Quick-forward to now and Raye is in a really completely different place; making music as an unbiased artist, in January 2023 she topped the UK charts for the primary time with viral hit Escapism. The next month, the debut album she fought so arduous to make, My twenty first Century Blues, charted at quantity two. Now not pigeonholed or stifled, that is the true Raye, she says, and it has been a very long time coming.
“The album is discussing numerous completely different subjects… the deepest depths of actually ugly tales about assaults and physique dysmorphia and environmental nervousness. I believe there is not any restrict on what I’ve actually spoken on by way of my perspective on my blues as a lady within the twenty first Century.”
‘It is issues I have been silent about for therefore lengthy’
All the time outspoken, Raye shouldn’t be an artist who sticks to trotting out strains of authorised PR-speak when she’s being interviewed, and this candidness is obvious all through her music. “Being actual and clear is de facto essential to me, to skip out metaphors and similes and minimize straight to the purpose of what I am speaking about,” she says. “A few of these issues I have not additionally solely healed from.
“It is undoubtedly going to be a rollercoaster for certain, however one which I am making the choice to go on. That is type of the artist I wish to be, clear, trustworthy. I believe that is what I am like in actual life.”
One track, Ice Cream Man, offers with sexual assault. “It is issues I have been silent about for therefore lengthy and swallowed for therefore lengthy and self-managed for therefore lengthy in non-constructive methods,” she says.
“I’ve written fairly transparently about sexual violence… a number of issues that happen in a life that you just simply bury, bury down, cover in a field, do not inform anybody. And it simply festers and manipulates itself into one thing fairly ugly.”
As with Escapism, a darkish electro banger about utilizing alcohol, medication and informal intercourse as coping mechanisms for coping with emotional ache, the album is a distinction of usually melancholy or darkish lyrics, with beats that can fill a dance flooring, in addition to a spread of genres.
“You have acquired songs with a contrasting sonic panorama,” she says. “I discover it actually thrilling to inform a narrative after which the music really feel the alternative so I believe there’s numerous juxtaposition there.”
Irony in its ‘most hilarious and ridiculous kind’
Escapism’s success feels ironic to Raye. “With the earlier music, not in a nasty approach, nevertheless it was extra in regards to the track than in regards to the artist. The massive dance songs or no matter, they do not essentially say something about me as an individual. I by no means essentially needed to be somebody who did large, large hits, however with out depth and substance or discussing issues I am captivated with, or breaking a few guidelines.
“Escapism is such a private story. It is type of darkish. It is extraordinarily express and trustworthy and uncooked… I actually instructed myself on the start of this subsequent chapter, I am not creating music with the intent or function to promote a great deal of copies, it is about integrity and telling these uncomfortable tales that I believe are actually essential.
“I had all of the preparation on the planet for constructing a small, regular fanbase little by little, and to not anticipate something by way of mainstream reflection. So that is like irony in its most hilarious and ridiculous kind, that that is the most important track of my complete profession.”
Learn extra on Raye:
‘I used to be proper to again myself’: Raye rises to first primary
Raye speaks out after leaving report label
Regardless of it not essentially being the plan, she admits topping the charts does really feel like vindication.
“[I feel] like something is feasible and I used to be proper to again myself,” she says. “By no means quit in your desires. For somebody who [felt] so, like, mediocre and… such a disappointment, really, for therefore lengthy, to simply obtain all of the affirmation on the planet that I used to be proper to again my music is simply…”
She does not want to complete the sentence. “For somebody who places phrases collectively for a dwelling, I do not essentially actually have the very best phrases to explain how loopy that is.”
‘Worry is the driving issue of secrets and techniques’
Emboldened, Raye says artists want to talk out extra in regards to the inside workings of the trade. And regardless of strikes to enhance range and equality making headlines lately, she says misogyny continues to be rife.
“We do have to be telling these tales extra,” she says. “I believe issues that occur within the darkness have a lot extra energy than they do after they’re introduced out to the sunshine, you already know? Worry is the driving issue of secrets and techniques, and truths and tales being withheld. However there’s nonetheless that very unhappy view that ladies have to be guided and managed and taught and given directions to observe and meet these necessities.”
She sighs. “I do not know… I believe it is most likely the identical for all artists however particularly for ladies, particularly for every part I’ve witnessed in 10 years within the trade. I believe rather a lot wants to alter, however I do not assume something will really be equal and honest till we have got the identical quantity of feminine CEOs as we do male CEOs, we have got the identical quantity of feminine workers working a video shoot as male workers, the identical quantity of feminine A&Rs, and the identical quantity of, you already know, completely different ethnicities in these identical roles.
“Stability total is so essential, and till we’ve that, there’s all the time going to be points and issues when you could have males deciding what they assume is greatest for ladies.”
Learn extra from Sky Information leisure:
Self Esteem on not being cool, not having her bum pinched, and never being fully skint
How deafness helped artist James Vickery discover his musical sound
‘Seven years previous, wide-eyed with a dream’: The album cowl for My twenty first Century Blues
Raye is trying to the long run. She says she has had little communication together with her former label bosses since she left, however desires to make it clear it wasn’t all unhealthy. There have been “some nice individuals there who actually believed in me… however clearly it got here right down to the massive individuals making huge choices”, she says.
I ask her in regards to the paintings for My twenty first Century Blues. It options a little bit lady, dressed for the office however teetering in pink stilettos hanging off her heels, standing atop a pile of devices and recording tools bearing the names of her songs, grabbing arms reaching out from inside. It feels poignant.
“That is really my child sister on prime of that huge construction we constructed,” says Raye. “However that little lady up there’s me, you already know, seven years previous, wide-eyed with a dream, not realising what the following 10 or 15 years of my life can be like.
“All of the completely different life – within the trade and out of the trade – that I’ve needed to navigate, course of, perceive, be taught in my transition to being a lady, to being an artist, to being an unbiased artist. It has been an actual wild journey.”
Raye’s debut album, My twenty first Century Blues, is out now
