Raye's is a versatile, acrobatic soprano often enlivened with a shiver of falsetto. Layers of her gorgeous harmonies build into a wave over a metallic, relentless clack of tech percussion, never more so than the bittersweet duet with Mahalia, Five Star Hotels. Somewhere between the rave club, exploratory electro, RnB, bluesy jazz and soul, Raye has carved her own space and while it's a familiar cocktail, she owns it entirely. This is the soundtrack to a woman kicking free of the restrictive crush of her first record label Polydor, which she claims wouldn't let her release a debut album after seven years.
Euphoric Sad Songs, released in 2020, shot Raye’s single Secrets into the UK Top 10 in 2021. She'd been releasing EPs, collaborating with dance and pop acts and touring for the previous six years, though: she was born for this. With friends like Charli XCX, Rina Sawayama, David Guetta, Mabel and an upcoming tour with Kali Uchis, Raye has pulled through the darkest period of her career to date, fuelled rather than destroyed by Polydor's ignorance.
Like FKA Twigs’s Caprisongs, Beyoncé's Renaissance, and SZA’s SOS, Raye’s My 21st Century Blues deserves to be listened to from start to finish, then again, and again. Cat Woods.
London-born Raye will have her work cut out for her trying to top this constellation of hits. The 25-year-old's agile, sultry vocals glimmer over throbbing, propulsive dance beats as she slinks through dramatic lyrical narratives.
Making good on the addictive beat and sexy, soulful balladry of Escapism (with 070 Shake), this album feels like a hard-won victory and a f**k you to label restrictions. Hard Out Here is a slow-grind, RnB banger that harks to the empowered sexiness of FKA Twigs. It is a stiletto-heeled stab into the seemingly impenetrable heart of white male privilege. “I'm about to have these grown men crying,” she sings.
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