Raye is built differently. At 14, while other teenagers were doing god-knows-what under the school sports stands, Raye was in studio sessions, writing songs for major artists. “I look back on those days and think, ‘wow, I was really one tough cookie,” she recalls, speaking to InStyle over Zoom from her home in London. “I was a young 14-year-old girl, working with 35-year-old men, as the only girl in the room. I worked with some incredible talents, also in very precarious situations. I started so young and I’ve seen so many things behind closed doors and I had to really fight in those rooms.”
24-year-old Raye, real name Rachel Keen, isn’t the type of person to obfuscate the reality of navigating the music industry as a woman of colour. In conversation she’s open and warm, laughing easily and talking with the conviction of someone who knows how they are, in spite of the efforts of others to mould them into something else. The daughter of a nurse and insurance broker, she was raised in a South London home that was always full of music. “I grew up always hearing my mum and my dad singing everywhere with music everywhere; a lot of soul, jazz, gospel,” she remembers fondly. The urge to perform came on young and strong. “From a baby I was able to sing harmonies to songs that played in the car, I just had this bug in me, this thing in me,” Raye tells.
She enrolled in the prestigious BRIT School — which boasts alumni such as Amy Winehouse, Adele and FKA Twigs — but dropped out after two years to pursue music full-time, only to be exposed to the worst of it. “You’re a child and it’s interesting because I thought in one way, like, ‘oh I get treated how I do because I’m a child, it’s because I’m young and when I’m grown up I’ll get that respect and I’ll be able to walk into the room and have that trust from the outset’,” she says. “Then you become a woman and you’re like, it’s got nothing to do with being a child, it’s being a woman. It’s hilarious, but I learned resilience. I learned how to get in there and not leave.”
Image: Sebastian Kampfhammer
Despite the nascent sexism, Raye went on to become one of the most ubiquitous musicians of British pop. Even if you haven’t heard her name before, there’s no doubt you’ve heard her voice. To date, she has over nine million monthly listeners on Spotify, nine Top 40 hits and songwriting credits for people such as Beyoncé, Charli XCX and John Legend. After signing with label Polydor following a successful first EP, she put out the smash dance hit, ‘You Don’t Know Me’ with Jax Jones, and then was quickly sidelined as a featured artist — appearing on other producers' songs rather than being allowed to put out her own. A string of hits followed, including ‘Decline’ with Mr. Eazi, ‘Secrets’ with Regard and the 2021 chart-topper ‘Bed’ Joel Corry and David Guetta. These are songs that sound just as at home in the club as they are on commercial radio, but they didn’t accurately capture the breadth of Raye’s talent. Prior to signing, she had been recording songs that more closely resembled Soundcloud R&B and smooth hip hop, but slowly, she was shoehorned into a genre that didn’t allow for growth and deprived of concrete answers about when she’d be able to put out her first full-length album.
In June last year, she finally put her foot down. Triggered by questions about when her debut record would be released, she sent off a series of tweets calling out her label. “I have been on a 4 ALBUM RECORD DEAL since 2014,” she wrote. “And haven’t been allowed to put out one album.” She detailed the hoops she’d jumped through — “I’ve done everything they asked me, I switched genres, I worked 7 days a week, ask anyone in the music game, they know” — and was at the point of pleading: “I want to make my album now, please that is all I want.” A couple weeks later, Raye announced that she was a newly independent artist, having been released from her contract by Polydor.
It felt like a reckoning. It’s well-documented how women artists can get caught in the machinery of labels where their albums get delayed and their music sidelined as profits shift and thus, priorities, too. But rarely do they speak out as candidly and plainly as Raye did, shattering the facade of civility that the industry relies on in order to maintain unequal power structures. As she said in her original tweets, “I’m done being a polite pop star.”
Image: Instagram.com/raye
Reflecting on the path that has led her here, she has no regrets. “I’m aware I’m probably going to lose some fans and some people won’t understand, but at the end of the day, what I’ve wanted since the age of 17 when I put pen to paper on a contract was exactly what I’m doing now: being fearlessly honest,” she says, voice resolute. “There’s a quote on my wall that was actually the catalyst for me just being like ‘no, I can’t do this anymore’. It’s from Nina Simone and she says. ‘it’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times’. That quote just sends shivers down my spine because that is exactly what I believe as an artist I’m supposed to do.”
Unlike many others, who grow up to have their consciousness raised, Raye says she’s always been hardwired for this kind of critical empathy. The first song she ever wrote as a child, for instance, was from the perspective of a homeless man she encountered on the street with her father one day— “I was so distraught, I asked my dad why?”. “It’s so deep and emotional and I hate how my voice sounded at that time so I doubt that will ever hear the light of day,” she explains. “But I was definitely challenging these interesting concepts as a songwriter from a young age, wanting to explore different perspectives and narratives.”
After leaving Polydor, she took time to regroup and now is ready to reintroduce herself. Almost exactly a year after those explosive tweets, she released the first single from her forthcoming album, ‘Hard Out Here’. It sets the tone for what’s to come. “All the white men CEOs, fuck your privilege,” she croons on the track. “Get your pink chubby hands of my mouth, fuck you think this is?” She also makes references to suicidal thoughts, possible abuse and addiction— even for an artist as candid as Raye, it’s bracingly vulnerable. Her follow-up single, ‘Black Mascara’, details her exit from a toxic relationship, giving voice to the experience so many will recognise. “Try to understand what you’ve done to me, what you’ve done to me,” she sings against an uptempo club beat. The message is clear: this is Raye’s story, on her terms.
There are more songs that delve into the darkness of what she’s experienced, with Raye explaining that a particular track was “one of the, if not the hardest song I’ve ever had to put on a microphone.” “Even when I’m talking to you about it now I get tears in the back of my eyes,” she says thoughtfully. “I really believe true art is true honesty and necessary. I’ve had this song for a really long time, but I wrote it when I was a young girl and I’ve changed verse two to update the situation. I’m so excited for that moment because I’m excited to find my healing through that. I’m not one to call out names or point fingers or look to end careers. I’ve done enough with my Polydor gun fingers there and I’m not looking for that. What I’m looking for is peace of mind and to shed light on what it feels like to be on the other side of that, you know?”
She reveals that ‘Black Mascara’ is the only electronic track on the album, with it being a more eclectic and truer reflection of her sonic taste and ability: “there are so many different tempos, feelings, flavours and emotions on there.” This music as catharsis; where the worst of what you’ve experienced doesn’t define you but makes you that little bit stronger. “I’ve had a sense of this feeling of dumbing myself down which is kind of a big overarching theme of how I've been allowed to express myself musically in the past,” Raye reflects. “I’m so proud of the fact that I’m where I am now.”
With the album roll-out in full-swing, she wants the music to help others in the same way it has her. “I hope the songs reach people who struggle in the darkness with the things I struggled with,” she says. “This music is literally my medicine. These are the songs I used to be okay, to be empowered, to cry to. There’s no point explaining because when you hear the album it will make sense, I hope. I’m just being as honest as possible on this record and if people hear this music and relate to that honesty then the job is done. If there’s five people who are like ‘Raye, thank you for this’, then the job is done.”
Raye will be touring Australia in February 2024, tickets go on sale February 9. Information here.