Raye’s debut album begins in a nightclub, with a compere announcing the 25-year-old singer as the star attraction. It’s certainly not the first time an artist has started an album that way, but it’s still surprisingly effective: the MC’s American showbiz voice contrasts thrillingly with Raye’s blunt British accent as she tells a feckless boyfriend where to get off.
Raye sounds confident, as well she might. My 21st Century Blues arrives on the back of Escapism, not just a No 1 single but a fantastic one: catchy but episodic, its booming drums give way to passages of beatless strings, while its sung-spoken lyrics turn a night on the pull into a mass of snappy, witty asides. Escapism arrived after a split from her major label of seven years, an experience that turned so sour you wonder if the ex who “convinced me with bullshit” in Oscar Winning Tears is a person or a metaphor for her experience of the music industry.
