Vest, shirt, hat, tie, Ralph Lauren. Earclip, Belperron.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
I hear Raye before I see her. I\u2019m sitting in a makeshift greenroom at Bloomingdale\u2019s in New York City, where the big-voiced British record-setter will perform in a few hours as the store unveils its holiday window displays. I\u2019m alone for a moment when the most beautiful voice I\u2019ve ever heard wafts out of her dressing room as she warms up. Soon the greenroom is swirling with backup vocalists and saxophone players, her co-managers Sarah and Paul Keen (otherwise known as Mom and Dad), and other members of Raye\u2019s team there to support her as she begins a push into the United States.<\/p>\n
Raye emerges from her dressing room for sound check looking every bit the star, wearing a sparkly black Burberry dress over jeans, with a winter coat zipped on top, and big dark sunglasses, her hair twisted and pinned in an Old Hollywood updo. \u201cLook how ridiculous I look right now,\u201d Raye, 28, says with a laugh as she climbs the stairs to head outside for sound check, where fans have been gathering for hours in the cold. <\/p>\n
Ninety minutes later, when Raye is back onstage for the performance, the crowd has swelled; they crane their necks and scream-sing along with Raye as she plays two hit singles off her powerhouse debut album, My 21st Century Blues<\/em>, \u201cOscar Winning Tears\u201d and \u201cWorth It,\u201d followed by a jazzy rendition of \u201cJingle Bells.\u201d Her finale is \u201cWhere Is My Husband!,\u201d the catchy first single off her forthcoming album, which doubles as a singles ad and has her trending on TikTok and the Billboard charts, if not any closer to matrimony. She instructs audience members to hold the hand of a loved one, or, she adds, \u201cIf you\u2019re single like me\u2014five years and counting\u2014then we hold on to hope, yes we do.\u201d<\/p>\n Jacket, Chanel. Earrings, Cartier.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n Raye\u2019s goal for 2026 is to increase her name recognition abroad. With a tour kicking off in Europe in late January and coming to the U.S. in April, and her highly anticipated sophomore record coming soon, a sense of anticipation and possibility hangs in the air all night. For all Raye has accomplished, and for all she\u2019s already had to overcome to make it to where she is today, it\u2019s clear she is now on the precipice of a whole new level of fame. She\u2019s up for the hustle, ready to do what it takes to achieve her American dreams. In the greenroom after the show, someone asks Raye if it\u2019s true that she got out of a cab that was stuck in traffic earlier in the week, to run several blocks to a meeting with a radio executive. She confirms the story and says, \u201cI was told he was important,\u201d with a laugh. <\/p>\n After Raye has changed, now cozy in an oversize gray sweater, baggy jeans, and a fuzzy black coat, extensions removed and her auburn hair brushed out into her signature coiffed bob, she hugs and profusely thanks everyone involved in the performance, and then we head off to dinner, before she\u2019s due to catch a flight to Paris around 1 A.M. As we walk out of Bloomingdale\u2019s, she\u2019s chatting with the security guard, and before they part I hear her say, \u201cSpread the word about me,\u201d as she throws her arms wide open and charms him with her thousand-watt smile. \u201cI\u2019m trying to make it in America!\u201d <\/p>\n Dress, Rahul Mishra. Headpiece, J.R. Malpere. Earrings, clip, Van Cleef & Arpels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n On the way to the restaurant, Raye is still making new friends. She asks to put some music on, and our Uber driver, seemingly unaware of the four-time Grammy nominee in his midst, plays us YouTube videos of himself singing Spanish ballads in his kitchen. Raye sincerely begs him to start a TikTok and post the videos there, where she assures him they will get attention. \u201cI\u2019m telling you, Jose, people are going to connect to this, because you are an amazing singer,\u201d she adds. \u201cIt\u2019s only a matter of time.\u201d <\/p>\n At Daniel, French chef Daniel Boulud\u2019s flagship Upper East Side restaurant, Raye doesn\u2019t hide her excitement about this, her first major U.S. magazine cover story. \u201cThis really is the big dream,\u201d she says, \u201cto make a name for yourself in this huge country.\u201d With the success of \u201cWhere Is My Husband!,\u201d she says, \u201cChapter Two is off to an exhilaratingly amazing start.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThis really is the big dream, to make a name for yourself in this huge country.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/section>\n I can\u2019t help thinking that if anyone deserves some smooth sailing this time around, it\u2019s her. Not only because I\u2019m suddenly as smitten with her as the security guard and Uber driver were, but because Chapter One was a very bumpy ride.<\/p>\n Before she was Raye, she was Rachel Keen, a girl from Croydon in South London\u2014a teenager who once described her style as \u201cbig earrings, school uniform, chewing gum\u2026proper loud!\u201d She is the child of a Ghanaian-Swiss mother, who worked in mental health for the National Health Service, and a British father, a songwriter and producer from Yorkshire. They met at church, where her father served as music director and her mother, and later Raye, too, sang in the choir. She\u2019s still called Rachel by her friends, family, and team, but to her fans it\u2019s always Raye for short. <\/p>\n She\u2019s been channeling her emotions into verse since she was 7, when she wrote her first song after seeing a homeless man and being struck by the injustice. Paul Keen says at first he didn\u2019t see it as more than a hobby: \u201cEveryone thinks their kid\u2019s talented, right?\u201d But when Raye was 13, her uncle bought her a laptop and she started creating music in GarageBand, Apple\u2019s music-production software platform, and Paul realized for the first time, \u201cOh, she\u2019s actually really good at this.\u201d <\/p>\n Dress, earrings, Chlo\u00e9. High Jewelry earrings, Bulgari. Ring, Emmanuel Tarpin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n At 14, she enrolled at the famed BRIT School (attended by Adele and Amy Winehouse), where she got to know another rising jazzy British singer currently climbing the charts, Olivia Dean. But Raye dropped out after two years, feeling stifled\u2014the first of many times she would break out of the boxes others tried to put her in.<\/p>\n The way Raye tells it over dinner is, \u201cI was 14 years old when I met my first manager, and I started doing sessions, and I was whisked into this world of just being…\u201d She pauses, searching for the right words. \u201cI went through some really traumatic things as a child.\u201d She signed her first record deal in 2014 when she was 17: a four-album deal, a contract full of language she didn\u2019t understand. \u201cI really was a baby,\u201d she says. \u201cI really was a child.\u201d <\/p>\n For the next nearly seven years, she was farmed out by her label, both as a \u201crent-a-vocal\u201d feature on dance tracks and to write songs for some of the biggest names in music\u2014Beyonc\u00e9, John Legend, Charli xcx. By mid-2021, she had four platinum, three gold, and four silver records, but she was never allowed to put out an album of her own. She reached a breaking point on June 29 of that year, posting on Twitter (now X): \u201cI\u2019m done being a polite pop star. I want to make my album now, please that is all I want.\u201d <\/p>\n It was a dark time for her, one she tells me she barely survived. She\u2019s been open about her struggles with drugs and alcohol at that time, whatever it took to numb her pain. But she looks back on that woman now as a different person. \u201cI\u2019m really proud of the growth I\u2019ve done, because there\u2019s a period in my life where I wasn\u2019t interested in going on,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I know a lot of people out there go through that. I would never dream of giving up on myself like that today.\u201d<\/p>\n Coat, Gucci. Cap, Pipenco. Earring, Chlo\u00e9. Earring, Van Cleef & Arpels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n Her desperate online plea worked; she and the label parted ways. Her dad took over as her manager, with her mom later taking time off from NHS to join the team. Says Sarah Keen: \u201cAt that time, I was commissioning mental health services for children, and I thought, \u2018That\u2019s what I\u2019m doing for other families. But my children also need me here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n A year and a half after splitting with her label, Raye released My 21st Century Blues<\/em>, an album she\u2019s said no label would have ever let her put out. As an independent artist, she was free to span genres\u2014R&B, jazz, club, soul\u2014and sing her truth on a wide range of issues from sexual assault, disordered eating, and addiction, to social media and climate change, even former Prime Minister Boris Johnson\u2019s coke use. \u201cWhy are we not talking? There\u2019s this huge list of things that are embarrassing and scary and terrifying to talk about\u2014the dark, the twisted, the ugly, the trauma\u2014and if not music, then where?\u201d she posits. \u201cAs hard as I do find it\u2014because you see those moments in your head that you run from\u2014I want to be an artist who can put words to something that hurts so much.\u201d For a moment, her eyes well with tears. <\/p>\n When \u201cEscapism,\u201d the album\u2019s breakout single about avoiding her problems with drunk sex and cocaine, hit No. 1 in the U.K., she called it \u201cproof [you should] back yourself, no matter what.\u201d Then, in March 2024, when she was 26, Raye became the first artist in history to win six BRIT Awards in one night, matching the lifetime totals of David Bowie, Michael Jackson, and Oasis. When she accepted the award for Album of the Year, she brought her Ghanaian grandmother, Agatha\u2014whose voice made it onto \u201cWhere Is My Husband!\u201d\u2014onstage with her.<\/p>\n Coat, skirt, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Earrings, Cartier.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Gown, Gucci. Earrings, Boucheron.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Raye could have picked any track to open her set at the BRIT Awards, but\u2014on one of the biggest nights of her career\u2014she chose to begin with \u201cIce Cream Man,\u201d a song she wrote about her multiple experiences of sexual assault, including one specific incident, when she was 17, involving a producer who invited her to record with him and put his hands between her legs (\u201cComing like the ice cream man\u2009\/\u2009Till I felt his ice-cold hands\u201d). \u201cIt was important to me,\u201d she tells me of the decision to perform it for a room full of music executives. \u201cIt was something medicinal and cathartic I needed to do for myself, to sing that song on that stage\u2014to open with it\u2014and be really loud about it. It allowed me to feel so powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n When she wrote the song, years before it was released, she wasn\u2019t thinking about sharing it. \u201cI made it because I needed to put words to everything that I was dealing with,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd actually that was the song that allowed me to talk to my parents for the first time about what I\u2019d been through across my childhood and adolescence and teenage years, trying to make it as a musician. So music is that safe space for me.\u201d <\/p>\n But here\u2019s the thing about \u201cIce Cream Man\u201d: It\u2019s not just a heartbreaking ballad. Raye reclaims her narrative in the song\u2019s dramatic chorus, declaring herself, \u201cA very fucking brave, strong woman.\u201d \u201cWords are so powerful, and we speak things over ourselves and it becomes part of our identity,\u201d she tells me, adding that she\u2019s now forbidding herself to say anything negative about herself, even in her internal thoughts. \u201cYou say, \u2018I\u2019m brave and I\u2019m strong,\u2019 and you are then making that your identity, instead of, \u2018I\u2019m a victim, I\u2019m broken, and I\u2019m never going to be okay again.\u2019 We are not going to let other people decide our futures. I\u2019m not going to let you steal my hope and my joy. Absolutely not.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe are not going to let other people decide our futures. I\u2019m not going to let you steal my hope and my joy. Absolutely not.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/section>\n Raye\u2019s decision to put out an album on her own was vindicated with her historic night at the BRITs, and she went on to be the first artist in history to be nominated for Grammys for both Best New Artist and Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical, in the same year. But the new level of scrutiny left her feeling isolated. \u201cYou overcome a mountain. Oh, guess what? Here\u2019s a new mountain for you to climb,\u201d she says. She had to resist the urge to let public opinion define who she was; a couple of burned bridges had her questioning whom she could trust, and she found herself \u201cextremely insular\u201d and \u201cvery closed off.\u201d \u201cBut because my dreams were coming true in my work life,\u201d she says, \u201cI felt like I didn\u2019t have a right to complain. So then I\u2019m just internalizing, bottling it.\u201d <\/p>\n When she\u2019s out and about, she says she\u2019ll \u201cnever allow myself to leave a bad impression with someone if I can help it,\u201d but that means she\u2019s always on, always ready to take a selfie or encourage an Uber driver to start a TikTok. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of energy output. I\u2019m an absolute people person, but when you\u2019re always pouring out, it means I\u2019m drawn to just coming home to recharge,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve become much more of a loner, really. At the beginning it was in a sad way, but now I\u2019m really finding myself and practicing self-love.\u201d <\/p>\n Dress, Rahul Mishra. Headpiece, J.R. Malpere. Earrings, clip, Van Cleef & Arpels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n Her new album starts in the \u201creal thick of that lonely place,\u201d Raye says. It has a third-person-narrated perspective throughout, giving it a storybook feel. She tells me that it starts in autumn and moves through all four seasons\u2014the narrative arc mirroring her own personal growth, the culmination of the self-work she\u2019s done to right her ship in the last year or so. There will be two vinyl records, each side a different season. <\/p>\n Her sophomore release comes from a very different place than her debut. For one, she wrote it mostly sober. \u201cA lot of My 21st Century Blues<\/em>, I was up in the clouds, rolling a blunt,\u201d she says. \u201cI like that I\u2019ve come down to earth to write these lyrics. I prefer myself like this. I\u2019ve found discipline and abstinence in my life, and it\u2019s a beautiful thing. I\u2019ll have a nice glass of wine every now and then, but I\u2019m no longer drinking to fix or bury or numb or escape.\u201d Twelve years in the music industry left her with a lot to unpack. \u201cA lot of damage had to be repaired from my old life, where I was entirely disconnected from my family. You see how close I am with my family now\u2014that\u2019s my center point. But I was a world away from that,\u201d she continues. \u201cI was a very different person to who I am now, even though I may present the same or be able to put on the mask and play the part.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cAutumn,\u201d the album\u2019s first chapter, is about looking for quick fixes. \u201cThere\u2019s this thing in society about other things being able to fix us. Love is number one, like, \u2018Find love and everything\u2019s going to be okay.\u2019 Or \u2018Drink this wine and everything\u2019s going to be okay,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cBut actually, the most beautiful lesson that I\u2019ve been learning is self-love, which is so hard. My gosh, being able to spend an evening with yourself, just you, is humbling. Bit by bit, I\u2019m shining a torchlight in the shadows of my life\u2014areas I\u2019ve neglected, areas I\u2019ve buried, things I\u2019ve been running from.\u201d \u201cWhere Is My Husband!\u201d gripes notwithstanding, she needed this season of being alone. \u201cI know there\u2019s going to come a time where I\u2019ll be surrounded with people and family. I want to have kids one day. I want to do all of those beautiful things, but I know that before I\u2019m ready to meet anyone, I need to find myself first. I don\u2019t want someone else to come and fix me. I want to meet someone as the best version of myself.\u201d <\/p>\n Dress, earrings, Chlo\u00e9. High Jewelry earrings, Bulgari. Ring, Emmanuel Tarpin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n She\u2019s more \u201ccautious\u201d and \u201csafe\u201d with herself now. \u201cI won\u2019t put myself in harm\u2019s way, the way that I used to. And that in itself is real growth,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t want to hurt myself at the expense of a night of joy or a night of escape, whether that be through a man or friends who, even though they mean well, are allowing me to be in a space where I\u2019m surrounded by temptation and drugs and things that I know aren\u2019t good for me.\u201d After a lifetime as a people pleaser, she\u2019s finally learning how to say no. \u201cWe have one little life, and I was choosing to live so much of it in the wrong place,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n Her publicist is texting that she needs to leave for the airport, but Raye is unfazed, popping her AirPods in my ears to play me the intro to her new album. Called \u201cGirl Under the Gray Cloud,\u201d it finds her seven Negronis deep and alone on the streets of Paris. It\u2019s a dramatic opening, followed by an even bigger bang when track one, \u201cI Will Overcome,\u201d comes on. Backed by an orchestra, the song is \u201cbig and dramatic, and unapologetically so,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lyric in there that says, \u2018Aren\u2019t we all broken people?\u2019 We just perfect how to hide it. But it\u2019s life\u2019s guarantee that we\u2019re all going to die. So am I going to live like this all of my life? I\u2019m not okay right now, but I\u2019ll get there somehow. I\u2019ll overcome.\u201d<\/p>\n One line in the song that jumps out at me is about Amy Winehouse, to whom Raye is often compared. The singers both \u201clived and breathed\u201d many of the same influences: Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Washington, and Sarah Vaughan, so it\u2019s not surprising that they would have a similar sound. Not to mention Raye counts Winehouse as a huge inspiration. \u201cI\u2019m aware that what she did is irreplaceable and inimitable and that is what it is. Amy done it so well that no one can ever do what she did. And God rest her soul she gave her her whole life for us to enjoy the music that she left behind,\u201d Raye says. \u201cWhat\u2019s difficult for me is when people are so horrible, rude, nasty, and evil with their words, \u2018You\u2019ll never be her. You are an absolute failure. You disgust me trying to think that you could even be remotely like she was.\u2019 And it\u2019s like the funny thing to me about the way they\u2019re speaking to me is, it\u2019s that same evil. I\u2019m not saying I\u2019ve experienced even a hundredth of what that girl was put through, but it comes from a similar place. Our beloved Amy would probably still be here today if she didn\u2019t have to be subject to all this hate when she was alive. So it\u2019s quite an intense thing to address so early on in this album, but I felt in my heart that I really wanted to.\u201d <\/p>\n Dress, Rahul Mishra. Headpiece, Stephan Jones for Rahul Mishra. Earrings, Lelet NY. High jewelry necklace, Bulgari.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In an unusual move, Raye will use her upcoming tour, called \u201cThis Tour May Contain New Music\u201d (which begins in Poland on January 22), to refine her still-unreleased songs based on the response from the audience. \u201cI don\u2019t want this album to feel like it was made in a studio,\u201d she explains. \u201cI want it to feel like it was informed by the live experience.\u201d The final segment of the show\u2014\u201cSummer\u201d\u2014will be a dance party. She plans to have the word \u201cRAYE\u201d on a screen behind her onstage and transition it to say \u201cRAVE,\u201d which is an idea she got from a very drunk woman at one of her shows. (\u201cI just want to find this girl to tell her thank you,\u201d she says. \u201cI hope she remembers.\u201d) Her sisters Abby (stage name: Absolutely) and Lauren (stage name: Amma) will both open separately for her. (Their youngest sister, Katelyn, 14, also harbors dreams of becoming a musician.) \u201cWe\u2019ve got them growing back in our garden,\u201d their dad jokes of his talented brood. <\/p>\n She\u2019s already sold out two concerts at Radio City Music Hall in NYC, which she calls her dream venue. She marvels at how far she\u2019s come since her first tour, recalling one show in St. Louis that only sold a quarter of the tickets. She learned to focus on the people who did show up, not on the empty space. \u201cIt was disheartening. I was really upset, but it\u2019s important to feel those things, to go through the steps,\u201d she says. \u201cYou\u2019re able to build resilience as well.\u201d<\/p>\n If her first album was about helping herself, she hopes this next one will be in service of others. She tells me about a concept called \u201csonder,\u201d popularized by internet writer John Koenig, which means everyone is living a life as complex and as detailed as your own. She says it\u2019s about recognizing the wars we\u2019re all fighting behind our eyes. \u201cMusic is medicine. I\u2019ve always said that,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I guess I\u2019m in the process of making medicine for myself that I can share with the world. I want us all to say to ourselves that it\u2019s going to be all right, and I\u2019m going to have faith in the seeds that I\u2019ve planted beneath the snow. I wanted to create something that is a hug or bed or soft place for that person who needs it.\u201d<\/p>\n Lead image: Vest, shirt, hat, tie, Ralph Lauren. Earclip, Belperron.<\/em>![\"fashion](\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/hmg-prod\/images\/elm020126wlraye-008-696542bed625a.jpg?resize=980:*\" "\\"fashion")
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