Singer-songwriter Raye swept the board at the Brit Awards, taking home a record-breaking six of the seven prizes she was nominated for.
Her full haul was: album of the year for “My 21st Century Blues”; artist of the year; song of the year for “Escapism”; best new artist; R&B act; and songwriter of the year. She is also the first woman to win songwriter of the year.
“Clearly amazed and overwhelmed by her wins”, she took her grandmother Agatha on stage with her as she collected her sixth award, for album of the year, said the BBC. Her final trophy of the night was presented by her former headteacher from the Brit School.
“You just don’t understand what this means to me,” the 26-year-old singer said. “All I ever wanted to be was an artist, and now I’m an artist with an album of the year.”
Her road to success has not been an easy one. Born Rachel Keen in Tooting, south London, she comes from a musical family. Her grandfather was a musician and songwriter and her parents met at a church choir where her father was the musical director. Her father is now her manager and he also looks after the interests of her two younger sisters, Lauren and Abby, “who are both making waves as talented young singer/songwriters”, said the Mirror.
Raye attended the Brit School in Croydon for two years before dropping out, because “nobody there liked pop music”, said The Sun. Her current “all-conquering success” comes three years after she fell out with record label Polydor, which signed her in 2014 but then “refused to let her make her own album despite scoring nine Top 40 successes with a series of dance collabs”.
After she was freed from her contract she was allowed to keep her songs. She “decided to release them herself”, said the BBC, and the Brits song of the year “Escapism went viral on TikTok and then to number one”.
Her album “My 21st Century Blues” reached number two and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. She “also had a hand in” one of 2023’s most successful songs: “Prada”, said The Guardian: a “banging dance reworking by producer Cassö of an earlier song Raye made with rappers D-Block Europe, entitled Ferrari Horses”, which spent 14 weeks in the UK top five.
Many of her hit singles, including “Cigarette”, “Second”, “Ice Cream Man” and “Welcome to the Winter”, chart her battles with drugs, an eating disorder and sexual assault “by an A-list record producer” and have won her an army of fans, said The Sun. She is now “tipped to follow Dame Shirley Bassey, Adele, Tina Turner and Billie Eilish to sing a Bond movie theme”.