London, UK · pop-soul · R&B

RAYE

4 festivals played ↓

Britain's Grammy-and-BRIT-sweeping songwriter freed from label limbo — big-band soul-pop with real stakes, and a live show that earns every award.

RAYE was born Rachel Agatha Keen in Tooting, south London, to a Ghanaian-Swiss mother who works in mental health and an English father from Yorkshire. Music surrounded her early: her mother sang in a church choir, her father directed it, and she wrote her first song for a Year 6 concert, performing it at Southwark Cathedral. She later spent two years at the BRIT School before leaving.

At seventeen she uploaded a self-produced EP, Welcome to the Winter, to SoundCloud. Olly Alexander passed it to Polydor Records, who signed her in 2014. She spent years writing for other artists and lending vocals to dance records, including Jonas Blue's "By Your Side" and Jax Jones's "You Don't Know Me", before her own EP Euphoric Sad Songs produced the UK top-ten hit "Secrets".

RAYE left Polydor in 2021 after the label repeatedly delayed her debut album. She signed instead with Human Re Sources and released My 21st Century Blues independently in 2023. Its single "Escapism" gave her a first UK number one, and "Prada", made with Cassö and D-Block Europe, reached number two.

Her music sets soul, jazz and big-band arrangement against contemporary pop, and her lyrics address addiction, the music industry and personal trauma without flinching. She has since won seven BRIT Awards, including six in a single year, a record, and became the first woman to win Songwriter of the Year there, alongside two Ivor Novello Awards.

A second album, This Music May Contain Hope, gave her a first UK number-one record, led by the single "Where Is My Husband!", her second chart-topper and biggest hit yet on the Billboard Global 200. Live, she performs with a full band and horn section, built around her voice rather than production.

Read more

pop-soulR&B