There's something quietly cinematic about watching Raye in front of a grand piano. It’s like a film noir, with the musician cast as the enigmatic protagonist. In the wood-panelled downstairs room of the Twenty Two – an Edwardian mansion now serving as a Mayfair members’ club – the velvet furniture and low-level light- ing already make it feel like a 1940s speakeasy. But as Raye starts singing smoky covers of Sam Cooke’s ‘Summertime’ and Nina Simone’s ‘I’m Feeling Good’ – flexing a staggering vocal range in the process – the room and everyone in it is transported to another era.
Then there’s the crowd, who really do belong in a blockbuster: icons of music and fashion Janet Jackson and recent ELLE cover star Naomi Campbell are seated at the very front, voraciously clapping every time a song ends. Because although Raye brings an old-Hollywood glamour, the year is very much 2024 – mid Febru- ary, to be precise – and her performance is at a London Fashion Week party thrown by ELLE.
The event marks a kind of passing of the baton. Now it’s the 26-year-old musician’s turn to grace this magazine’s cover; a big moment in what is already a landmark year for the south Londoner. In January, she was nominated for seven Brit awards, breaking a new record for an artist in a single year. She then went on to win six, making history again (and matching the career total of David Bowie, Michael Jackson and Oasis), before performing a blistering medley of her songs ‘Ice Cream Man’, ‘Prada’ and ‘Escapism’. Joined on stage to pick up Album of the Year with her grandma, Agatha, she broke down, or in her words during the acceptance speech, ‘ugly [cried] on national television’.
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‘From the moment my name was first called, I was so emo- tional. It was the greatest night of validation – and completely overwhelming,’ she says. I’m sitting with Raye – real name Rachel Keen – on the set of her ELLE shoot. On stage, she exudes the undeniable spark of a burgeoning star but, off-duty, she wears her celebrity with a refreshing lightness. In baggy jeans and a slouchy jumper, she’s warm, candid and possesses a down-to-earth charm that sets her apart in an industry rife with artifice, where artist authenticity often seems to be at odds with the demands of profit and popularity.
We’re meeting at a unique point in Raye’s life. Since early childhood, she dreamed of being a musician and, growing up in Croydon, the daughter of a Ghanaian-Swiss mother, Sarah, and an English father, Paul, the prestigious Brit school (attended by Adele and Amy Winehouse) was a stone’s throw away. Raye, who cut her teeth singing in a church gospel choir, landed a place at 14, but dropped out at 17 when she signed a four-album record deal with Polydor.
On the outside, it looked like she had the world at her feet, but the reality is that Raye spent the best part of a decade battling the label to let her make an album. It never happened and, instead, she was sent off to work with other artists. Despite being sidelined by the label for years, she managed to garner huge success as both a songwriter (she’s worked with the likes of Beyoncé and John Legend) and as what she dubs a ‘rent-a-vocal’ (as the featured singer behind Jax Jones’ ‘You Don’t Know Me’, David Guetta’s ‘Bed’ and a slew of other high-charting, low-artistry dance tracks, which she dismisses as ‘boring’ and ‘terrible’). It’s heartbreaking; her own songs weren’t matching those numbers so, in a cruel twist of fate, her success as a featured artist kept her from being allowed to release music in her own right. Deeply unhappy, she begged to be freed from her contract. When Polydor refused, she took to social media, helpless. In a barrage of tweets, Raye told the world: ‘I’m done being a polite pop star.’
It was a risk: one that may well have ended her career but, instead, marked a major turning point. ‘Escapism’, her first single as an independent artist, went to number one. Detailing a drug- fuelled hook-up and the underlying heartbreak driving it, the song – with its rousing bassline and unfiltered lyrics – packs a powerful punch. She followed it with her long-overdue debut album, My 21st Century Blues, last February. Gone are the syrupy dance tracks; in their place are raw ballads, orchestral arrangements and future stadium singalongs. Straddling various genres, from soul to R&B, it showcases her dexterity as an artist. It also signalled a terrific moment of vindication: those who dismissed her as a one-trick pony must feel pretty out of touch right now.
Much of the album was written when she was still trapped by her former record label. ‘I was putting out music I hated, working stupidly hard, dealing with a whole lot of trauma and making a lot of bad decisions – add substance abuse on top of that... It was a messy time,’ she explains. Amy Winehouse once said, ‘Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen,’ and, in My 21st Century Blues, Raye’s personal experiences of addiction, body dysmorphia, sexual assault and depression are packaged up as powerful songs that radiate with vulnerability. The lyrics of ‘Body Dysmorphia’ are raw and brutally honest, while ‘Ice Cream Man’ – in which she shares multiple experiences of sexual assault – is often so hard to perform that she breaks down on stage. ‘That’s what art is,’ she says. ‘It’s going to be painful because it’s real.’
The response from her fans makes it bearable and worth it. ‘Our generation is working out how to normalise and create safe spaces for these conversations,’ she says. ‘I get messages like, “Hi, I’m a 55-year-old woman, I went through what I went through when I was 17 and I’ve been silent my entire life.” It makes me very teary and very grateful that I’ve been able to make an album that people out there needed.’
The adversity she faced in her recent past has helped Raye to truly rip up the rulebook this time around. Without the constraints of a record label, she’s adopting a radical new approach that prioritises her mental health, as well as her success as an artist. Case in point: her mum and dad are now her managers. ‘Before I involved my parents in my career, I was so lost and I was really not doing well. I need people around me who really care about me, who have my best interests at heart and know my boundaries. No one’s proven that more than them,’ she says. I meet Raye’s mum on set during the photo shoot. She’s currently on sabbatical from a career in mental health and, like Raye, she’s kind and discerning. I chat to her as we watch her daughter pose, and she tells me about their plans to launch a charity called Ripples, which will run sew- ing schools in Ghana for women to learn skills and set up their own businesses. ‘My mum always says, “Humility, Rachel. Humility.” Keeping your feet on the ground is so important,’ Raye adds.
That may be true, but it feels like Raye is on the precipice of super stardom, and the shifts that come with that feel unavoidable. Having just returned from a sold-out Australian tour, she had to squeeze her Brit-award performances into an already gruelling schedule. She still works with other artists, most recently Jennifer Lopez, with whom she co-wrote ‘Dear Ben, Pt II’. ‘She’s so passionate and she was so open with me’, she says. She grins conspiratorially. ‘And she’s so pretty’.
Raye is determined not to get lost in the fanfare. ‘I love my album because it feels honest. The last thing that I want now is for people to think that I’m not down-to-earth or that I belong in first class or a fancy hotel room,’ she says.
The fancy hotel rooms are calling, though. Coming out the other side of her David and Goliath battle, Raye has not only found success but an elevated level of fame, too. The latter brings with it a whole new set of challenges. ‘I don’t want to be famous,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to be an influencer. I don’t want to be too “big” for anything – other than I want millions and millions of ears listening to my music.’
Getting those ears involves a certain amount of activity on social media. Apps like TikTok have been instrumental to her success; ‘Escapism’ blew up on the platform before crossing over to the mainstream charts. But they are also a place of pressure and hostility. From Stormzy to Billie Eilish, musicians are becoming increasingly vocal about the negative impact social media has on their mental health. ‘That shit is f*cked,’ says Raye. ‘Why do I care how many likes I’m getting? You can see thousands of people’s opinions. When you let those opinions in, you start to loathe your- self or pick yourself apart.’
For Raye, confidence is a work in progress. ‘I feel confident when I write, when I sing. Other times, I feel insecure and out of place,’ she says. While the fashion industry is one of the worlds she’s still navigating (‘It can be quite intimidating’), sitting front row at Valentino Haute Couture last year was a real highlight, she says. ‘It was breathtaking; it actually took my breath away.’
The same legendary musicians who inspire her music also influence her style: ‘Ella Fitzgerald was a beautiful woman and I love the way she dressed. Same with Nina Simone and Diana Ross’. Closer to home, British designer Ellie Misner helps her feel good on stage, making bespoke corset pieces for her tour wardrobe. ‘I adore her. Whether I’m skinny or not – which is something I do think about – I always feel good in that old Hollywood style; corsets, gloves, a beautiful dress,’ she explains.
After a historic night at the Brits, it feels like the world is watching Raye. Her music has since reached a staggering five billion streams, while her video views have increased by 621%. The extra exposure has introduced legions of new fans to her music, but she’s also faced horrific cruelty in comments online.
‘Being a woman in this thing, you’re critiqued on your appear- ance alone, and it’s shit. People talk about my weight, people have been saying I don’t look like a woman; really nasty comments that go round and round in your head. I’m not the most confident in my appearance, it’s something I still struggle with,’ she says.
Recently, Raye’s therapist asked her, ‘When do you feel like the voices in your head are being most evil to you?’ Her answer was instantaneous. ‘When I’m on social media.’ Her therapist replied, ‘OK, what are we gonna do about that?’ It wasn’t a rhetor- ical question. The next day Raye – who already had a separate phone for her social media – handed her passwords to her friend to run her accounts. Now, when she needs to post, she’s handed the socials phone for a five-minute window.
It’s another example of the ways she stays sane in the cut-throat industry that almost broke her. After the Brits, Raye decided to schedule a month off to focus on self-care. ‘I don’t want to go into this next chapter feeling insecure,’ she explains. ‘I feel lonely. I don’t mean that in the sense of wanting a partner or wanting to be in love. It’s not that. I need to do some therapy, get some practices in place to let the negatives fall away and soak up all the positive things that life is offering me right now.’ And so, it’s back home to South London, where she lives with two of her three sisters – Abby and Lauren – and her dog, Yoshi. ‘It’s lovely. It’s grounding,’ she says.
I ask Raye if she would have done anything differently, know- ing what she knows now. She’s resolute: ‘Twisted and horrible as it was, I wouldn’t be in this position now. The most obvious com- parison is to an ex; there’s still some pain. There are weeks you’re great, weeks you feel shit. But that’s just life. I’m taking things day by day.’ Right now, things are good. ‘When I really reflect on it all, I realise I’ve been given a chance to go again,’ she says.
To call it a second chance sounds like luck, or in her own words, ‘a series of miracles’, but that’s only half the story. Starting again took tenacity, guts and an extraordinary leap of faith. Labels might manufacture pop stars, but Raye is creating something far more enduring.
The May issue of ELLE UK is out on newsstands on April 3.
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