Raye on the fight to release debut album My 21st Century Blues: ‘It’s been a real wild journey’
Raye is gaining her power back. Not just from the industry that made her feel “mediocre” for so many years, but over past traumas she kept bottled up for a long time.
“Some of my closest friends didn’t even know some of the stuff I’m discussing on my album,” she tells Sky News. “It’s probably the most honest I’ve been. It’s deep and it’s real.”
Raye, real name Rachel Keen, is only 25 but already a music industry veteran; a platinum-selling performer and a songwriter with credits for everyone from Charli XCX and Little Mix to John Legend and Beyonce.
She was just 15 when she released her first song and 17 when all her dreams came true, in the form of a four-album contract with record label Polydor. But after years of what seemed to be a successful career as a vocalist collaborating mainly on other artists’ dance hits, in 2021 she posted a string of tweets claiming the label was holding her back from releasing her own album.
“I’m done being a polite pop star,” she wrote, her frustration and anger palpable. The singer says after years of “trying to make it work”, she had reached the point where she had nothing to lose. “You get to that breaking point, really.”
Shortly after her tweets, it was announced she and Polydor were parting ways, with the label saying the decision had been “amicable and mutual” and wishing her “all the very best for the future”.
Raye claimed her first number one with Escapism at the beginning of 2023. Pic: Official Charts
Fast-forward 18 months or so and Raye is in a very different place; now an independent artist, earlier in January she topped the UK charts for the first time with viral hit Escapism. In February, the debut album she fought so hard to make, My 21st Century Blues, will finally be released. No longer pigeonholed or stifled, this is the real Raye, she says, and it’s been a long time coming.
“The album is discussing a lot of different topics… the deepest depths of really ugly stories about assaults and body dysmorphia and environmental anxiety. I think there’s no limit on what I’ve really spoken on in terms of my perspective on my blues as a woman in the 21st Century.”
‘It’s things I’ve been silent about for so long’
Always outspoken, Raye is not an artist who sticks to trotting out lines of approved PR-speak when she’s being interviewed, and this candidness is evident throughout her music. “Being real and transparent is really important to me, to skip out metaphors and similes and cut straight to the point of what I’m talking about,” she says. “Some of these things I haven’t also entirely healed from.
“It’s definitely going to be a rollercoaster for sure, but one that I’m making the decision to go on. That’s kind of the artist I like to be, transparent, honest. I think that’s what I’m like in real life.”
One song, Ice Cream Man, deals with sexual assault. “It’s things I’ve been silent about for so long and swallowed for so long and self-managed for so long in non-constructive ways,” she says.
“I’ve written pretty transparently about sexual violence… multiple things that occur in a life that you just bury, bury down, hide in a box, don’t tell anyone. And it just festers and manipulates itself into something quite ugly.”
As with Escapism, a dark electro banger about using alcohol, drugs and casual sex as coping mechanisms for dealing with emotional pain, the album is a contrast of often melancholy or dark lyrics, with beats that will fill a dance floor, as well as a range of genres.
“You’ve got songs with a contrasting sonic landscape,” she says. “I find it really exciting to tell a story and then the music feel the opposite so I think there’s a lot of juxtaposition there.”
Irony in its ‘most hilarious and ridiculous form’
Escapism’s success feels ironic to Raye. “With the previous music, not in a bad way, but it was more about the song than about the artist. The big dance songs or whatever, they don’t necessarily say anything about me as a person. I never necessarily wanted to be someone who did huge, huge hits, but without depth and substance or discussing things I’m passionate about, or breaking a couple of rules.
“Escapism is such a personal story. It’s kind of dark. It’s extremely explicit and honest and raw… I really told myself on the beginning of this next chapter, I’m not creating music with the intent or purpose to sell loads of copies, it’s about integrity and telling these uncomfortable stories that I think are really important.
“I had all the preparation in the world for building a small, steady fanbase bit by bit, and to not expect anything in terms of mainstream reflection. So this is like irony in its most hilarious and ridiculous form, that this is the biggest song of my entire career.”
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‘I was right to back myself’: Raye rises to first number one
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Despite it not necessarily being the plan, she admits topping the charts does feel like vindication.
“[I feel] like anything is possible and I was right to back myself,” she says. “Never give up on your dreams. For someone who [felt] so, like, mediocre and… such a disappointment, actually, for so long, to just receive all the affirmation in the world that I was right to back my music is just…”
She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. “For someone who puts words together for a living, I don’t necessarily really have the best words to describe how crazy this is.”
‘Fear is the driving factor of secrets’
Emboldened, Raye says artists need to speak out more about the inner workings of the industry. And despite moves to improve diversity and equality making headlines in recent years, she says misogyny is still rife.
“We do need to be telling these stories more,” she says. “I think things that happen in the darkness have so much more power than they do when they’re brought out to the light, you know? Fear is the driving factor of secrets, and truths and stories being withheld. But there is still that very sad view that women need to be guided and controlled and taught and given instructions to follow and meet these requirements.”
She sighs. “I don’t know… I think it’s probably the same for all artists but especially for women, especially for everything I’ve witnessed in 10 years in the industry. I think a lot needs to change, but I don’t think anything will truly be equal and fair until we’ve got the same amount of female CEOs as we do male CEOs, we’ve got the same amount of female staff working a video shoot as male staff, the same amount of female A&Rs, and the same amount of, you know, different ethnicities in these same roles.
“Balance overall is so important, and until we have that, there’s always going to be issues and problems when you have men deciding what they think is best for women.”
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‘Seven years old, wide-eyed with a dream’: The album cover for My 21st Century Blues
Raye is looking to the future. She says she has had little communication with her former label bosses since she left, but wants to make it clear it wasn’t all bad. There were “some great people there who really believed in me… but obviously it came down to the big people making big decisions”, she says.
I ask her about the artwork for My 21st Century Blues; it features a little girl, dressed for the workplace but teetering in red stilettos hanging off her heels, standing atop a pile of instruments and recording equipment bearing the names of her songs, grabbing hands reaching out from inside. It feels poignant.
“That’s actually my baby sister on top of that big structure we built,” says Raye. “But that little girl up there is me, you know, seven years old, wide-eyed with a dream, not realising what the next 10 or 15 years of my life would be like.
“All the different life – in the industry and out of the industry – that I’ve had to navigate, process, understand, learn in my transition to being a woman, to being an artist, to being an independent artist. It’s been a real wild journey.”
Raye’s debut album, My 21st Century Blues, is out from 3 February
A British version of long-running US sketch show Saturday Night Live (SNL) will be coming to Sky next year.
An American pop culture institution, SNL launched the careers of stars including Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy, Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell.
Donald Trump on a Mothers Day episode SNL in 1993. Pic: AP
It’s also featured a host of celebrity and political guests, including tech billionaire Elon Musk and Donald Trump when he was a presidential candidate.
SNL celebrated 50 years on air in February.
British comedians will be cast in the UK spin-off, which will be overseen by US producer Lorne Michaels alongside the US version.
Along with his production company Broadway Video, which has made The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and 30 Rock, the show will be led by UK production team Universal Television Alternative Studio.
The beginnings of SNL, which started in 1975, was recently made into the 2024 film Saturday Night, featuring Spider-Man star Willem Dafoe and Succession actor Nicholas Braun.
The success of SNL, which airs on NBC in the US, has led to past attempts at international versions of the programme, with a French version Le Saturday Night Live running for just one season in 2017.
OJ Simpson on SNL in 1978 with Gilda Radner (L), and Jane Curtin. Pic: AP
Cecile Frot-Coutaz, chief executive of Sky Studios and chief content officer at Sky, said: “For over 50 years Saturday Night Live has held a unique position in TV and in our collective culture, reflecting and creating the global conversation, all under the masterful comedic guidance of Lorne Michaels.
“The show has discovered and nurtured countless comedy and musical talents over the years and we are thrilled to be partnering with Lorne and the SNL team to bring an all-British version of the show to UK audiences next year – all live from London on Saturday night.”
Saturday Night Live UK will be broadcast on Sky Max and streaming service NOW in 2026.
Details about the UK version’s cast, hosts, and premiere will be announced in the coming months.
Entertainment
Wolf Hall director on streaming levies: ‘The government needs the guts to stand up to the bully in the White House’
The director of hit BBC period drama Wolf Hall says the government “needs to have enough guts to stand up to the bully in the White House” to protect the future of public service broadcasting.
Peter Kosminsky told Sky News’ Breakfast with Anna Jones that calls for a streaming levy to support British high-end TV production was urgently needed to stop the “decimation” of the UK industry.
His comments follow the release of a new report from the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) committee, calling for the government to improve support measures for the UK’s high-quality drama sector while safeguarding the creation of distinctly British content.
Specifically, the report calls for streamers – including Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV+ and Disney+, all of which are based in the US – to commit to paying 5% of their UK subscriber revenue into a cultural fund to help finance drama with a specific interest to British audiences.
Kosminsky, who made the case for the levy and gave evidence to the committee in January, called global tariffs recently introduced by Donald Trump “the elephant in the room”.
He said he feared they would make the government reticent to introduce a streaming levy, but said it was a necessary step to “defend a hundred years of honourable tradition of public service broadcasting in this country and not see it go to the wall because [the government are] frightened of the consequences from the bully in the States”.
The second series of Wolf Hall, starring Mark Rylance (L) and Damian Lewis, nearly didn’t happen. Pic: BBC
Kosminsky also noted that the streamers would be able to apply for money from the fund themselves, as long as they were in co-production with a UK public service broadcaster.
Earlier this year, a White House memorandum referenced levies on US streaming services, calling them “one-sided, anti-competitive policies” that “violate American sovereignty”.
In response to the call for streaming levies, a Netflix spokesperson said such a move would “penalise audiences” and “diminish competitiveness”.
They added: “The UK is Netflix’s biggest production hub outside of North America – and we want it to stay that way.”
The Association for Commercial Broadcasters and On-Demand Services (COBA) said such a levy “risks damaging UK growth and the global success story of the UK TV sector,” and “would risk dampening streamers’ existing investment in domestic content and would inevitably increase costs for businesses”.
Pic: BBC
COBA said it welcomed the committee’s support for targeted tax breaks for domestic drama.
Kosminsky also told Sky News the second series of Wolf Hall was nearly called off just six weeks before it was due to start shooting due to financial pressures, adding: “It was only because the producer, the director, writer and the leading actor all agreed to take huge cuts in their own remuneration that the show actually got made.”
He said that both he and the show’s executive producer, Sir Colin Callender, had “worked on the show unpaid for 11 years on the basis that we would get a payment when the show went into production”, calling it “a bitter blow” to see that disappear.
Working in public service broadcasting for his entire career, Kosminsky said it was “absolutely heartbreaking for me and others like me to see that the industry we have been nurtured by and we care about is being decimated”.
While he said he was a “huge fan of the streamers”, he said it was their “very deep pockets” that had “driven up the price of what we do”, to the point where the traditional broadcasters can no longer afford to make high-end television.
Adolescence. Pic: Netflix
Just this week, Adolescence, created by British talent Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, became the fourth most popular English-language series in Netflix’s history with 114 million views.
But while some very British shows might get taken on by the streamers due to universal appeal, Kosminsky said dramas including ITV’s Mr Bates Vs The Post Office and Hillsborough, and BBC drama Three Girls about the grooming of young girls by gangs in the north of England were examples of game-changing productions that could be lost in the future.
He warned: “These are not dramas that the streamers would ever make, they’re about free speech in this country. That’s part of what we think of as a democratic society, where we can make these dramas and programmes that challenge on issues of public policy that would never be of any interest in America.”
Mr Bates vs the Post Office. Pic: ITV/Shutterstock
The CMS report comes following an inquiry into British film and high-end television, which considered how domestic and inward investment production was being affected by the rise of streaming platforms.
Chairwoman of the CMS committee, Dame Caroline Dinenage, said “there will be countless distinctly British stories that never make it to our screens” unless the government intervenes to “rebalance the playing field” between streamers and public service broadcasters (PSBs).
A DCMS spokesperson said: “We acknowledge the challenges facing our brilliant film and TV industry and are working with it through our Industrial Strategy to consider what more needs to be done to unlock growth and develop the skills pipeline. We thank the committee for its report which we will respond to in due course.”
Entertainment
New Universal theme park set to open in UK – with promise of ‘billions’ of pounds for the economy
A deal for a new Universal theme park in Bedfordshire has been confirmed, which Rachel Reeves says will bring “billions” to the economy and create thousands of jobs.
It will be the first Universal-branded theme park and resort in Europe and is set to open in 2031, when it is expected to become the UK’s most popular visitor attraction.
The government said it will bring an estimated £50bn into the British economy and will create about 28,000 jobs – nearly 20,000 during the construction phase, and 8,000 more in hospitality and the creative industries when it opens.
A 500-room hotel and a retail and entertainment complex is planned alongside the theme park, which will be built on a former brickworks.
Universal, which is owned by Sky News’ US parent company Comcast, expects the 476-acre site just south of Bedford to generate nearly £50bn for the economy by 2055, with 8.5m visitors in its first year.
The plan remains subject to a formal planning decision process from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Universal has committed to working with local colleges and universities to train students for hospitality jobs.
There are Universal theme parks in Florida (pictured), California, Japan, Beijing and Singapore. Pic: AP
Among some of the famous Universal films are Wicked, Minions, Oppenheimer, Bridget Jones, Fast and the Furious, and Jurassic World.
There are five Universal theme parks already: Orlando in Florida, Hollywood, Japan, Beijing, and Singapore.
The new Universal theme park will be just south of Bedford
Speaking to Wilfred Frost on Sky News Breakfast, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the deal was “huge”.
“This is not just about numbers on the spreadsheet,” she said.
“This is about good jobs. It’s about growth. It’s about raising people’s living standards and putting money in people’s pockets. And it’s a massive vote of confidence in the United Kingdom.”
Welcoming the timing of the announcement, Ms Nandy added: “This deal comes off the back of one of the most tumultuous few weeks in global markets that I think anyone can remember within living memory.”
She said the fact that the government had been able to show it kept a “cool head” and “we don’t take knee-jerk decisions in response to global events” was one of the reasons it was able to announce the deal.
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The proposals to transform the site, a former brickworks, remain subject to a formal planning decision process
The government has said about 80% of employees at the theme park are expected to come from local areas, and it will support the “Oxford-Cambridge corridor” revived by the chancellor in January after the Conservatives scrapped plans for an Abingdon-Milton Keynes train link in 2021.
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It will also commit to a “major investment” in infrastructure around the Universal site to ensure it is well-connected and easily accessible.
The announcement comes days after the government approved an expansion of nearby Luton Airport.
Mike Cavanagh, President of Comcast Corporation, said: “We could not be more excited to take this very important step in our plan to create and deliver an incredible Universal theme park and resort in the heart of the United Kingdom, which complements our growing US-based parks business by expanding our global footprint to Europe.
“We appreciate the leadership and support of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Minister for Investment Poppy Gustafsson, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy and their teams, as we work together to create and deliver a fantastic new landmark destination.”
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