Oh, to be a fly on the wall of the Polydor boardroom when the suits hear this exceptional debut from Raye. I like to picture jaws dropping so hard and fast they shatter the corporate table that had been her glass ceiling for so long. Rachel Keen was signed to the label for six years, during which she was asked to churn out formulaic dance hits. Meanwhile, the songs she wrote from the heart were either left to collect dust or rejigged for other artists. In 2021, she tweeted about her distress and left Polydor to make My 21st Century Blues as an independent artist. And you can feel the adrenalin rush of anger, joy and freedom pulsing through every one of the record’s 13 invigorating tracks.
If you heard the advance single “Hard Out Here”, you’ll be familiar with the exhilarating sound of a woman calling out those who have treated her badly. “My pen is a gun,” Keen warns at the start, before building righteous momentum over a loping beat. “All the white men CEOs, f*** your privilege/ Get your pink chubby hands off my mouth, f*** you think this is?” Her fury is served up with cool control. The fluid metre of her rapping arrives in short, fiery blasts, like tequila shots.
