Though Raye recounting her difficulties in the music industry often makes for painful listening in the latest instalment of Louis Theroux’s celebrity interview series, her experiences are unfortunately very far from unique. What sets her apart, so far, is that she’s one of a handful of young women brave enough to talk openly about it all, and this honesty is to be commended.
Despite exploitative contracts, never-ending artist development deals, and stat-chasing execs, and a toxic culture that normalises excess and turns a blind eye to abuse, the music industry is yet to have any kind of substantial reckoning when it comes to rooting out its rotten parts. Many artists hungry to make it in a hyper-competitive field eagerly sign multi-record deals when they are still in their late teens, and very much still in the process of figuring out their artistic identities.
