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.”
Read more on Raye:
‘I was right to back myself’: Raye rises to first number one
Raye speaks out after leaving record label
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
An emergency vote on Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest has been called off following developments in the Middle East, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has said.
Contest organisers had scheduled “an extraordinary meeting of [its] general assembly to be held online” in early November after several countries said they would no longer take part in Eurovision if Israel participated.
The EBU said in a statement that following “recent developments in the Middle East” the executive board had agreed on Monday that there should be an in-person discussion among members “on the issue of participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026”.
It said the matter had now been added to the agenda of its winter general assembly, which will take place in December.
Further details about the session would be shared with EBU members in the coming weeks, it added.
It is not clear if a vote will still take place at a later date.
Austria is hosting next year’s show in Vienna. The country’s national broadcaster, ORF, told Reuters news agency it welcomed the EBU’s decision.
Sky News has contacted Israeli broadcaster KAN for comment.
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Will Eurovision boycott Israel?
Faced with controversy over the conflict in Gaza, Eurovision – which labels itself a non-political event – had said member countries would vote on whether Israel should or shouldn’t take part.
Slovenia and broadcasters from Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Iceland had all issued statements saying if Israel was allowed to enter, they’d consider boycotting the contest.
As one of the “Big Five” backers of Eurovision, Spain’s decision to leave the competition would have a significant financial impact on the event – which is the world’s largest live singing competition.
In September, a letter from EBU president Delphine Ernotte Cunci, said “given that the union has never faced a divisive situation like this before” the board agreed it “merited a broader democratic basis for a decision”.
Read more:
Why Eurovision vote on Israel might not stop boycott
Could Eurovision boycott lead to a competition crisis?
On Monday, Palestinian militant group Hamas freed the last living Israeli hostages from Gaza, and Israel released busloads of Palestinian detainees, under a ceasefire deal aimed at bringing an end to the two-year war in the Middle East.
The war began when Hamas stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation, with airstrikes and ground assaults devastating much of the enclave and killing more than 67,000, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants but it says around half of those killed were women and children.
Entertainment
Diane Keaton, star of Annie Hall and The Godfather, has died aged 79 – US media reports
Actress Diane Keaton, who starred in films including The Godfather and Annie Hall, has died, reports have said.
People reported her death at the age of 79, citing a family spokesperson.
The magazine said she died in California with loved ones but no other details were immediately available, and representatives for Keaton did not immediately respond to inquiries from The Associated Press news agency.
Keaton’s death was also reported by the New York Times newspaper which said it has spoken to Dori Roth, who produced a number of Keaton’s most recent films, who confirmed she had died but did not provide any details about the circumstances.
With a long career, across a series of movies that are regarded as some of the best ever made, Keaton was widely admired.
She was awarded an Oscar, a BAFTA and two Golden Globe Awards, and was also nominated for two Emmys, and a Tony, as well as picking up a series of other Academy Award and BAFTA nominations.
Diane Keaton, with her best actress Oscar for ‘Annie Hall’ in 1978. Pic: AP
Her best actress Oscar was for the Woody Allen film Annie Hall, which is said to be loosely based on her life.
She appeared in several other Allen projects, including Manhattan, as well as all three Godfather movies, in which she played Kay, the wife and then ex-wife of Marlon Brando’s son Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, opposite him as he descends into a life of crime and replaces his father in the family’s mafia empire.
‘Brilliant, beautiful’
The unexpected news was met with shock around the world.
Her First Wives Club co-star Bette Midler wrote on Instagram: “The brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary Diane Keaton has died. I cannot tell you how unbearably sad this makes me.
“She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was … oh, la, lala!”
Actor Ben Stiller paid tribute on X, writing: “Diane Keaton. One of the greatest film actors ever. An icon of style, humor and comedy. Brilliant. What a person.”
Keaton was the kind of actor who helped make films iconic and timeless, from her “La-dee-da, la-dee-da” phrasing as Annie Hall, bedecked in the iconic necktie, bowler hat, vest and khakis, to her heartbreaking turn as Kay Adams, the woman unfortunate enough to join the Corleone family.
Keaton also frequently worked with Nancy Meyers, starting with 1987’s Baby Boom.
Their other films together included 1991’s Father of the Bride and its 1995 sequel, as well as 2003’s Something’s Gotta Give.
In 1996 she starred opposite Goldie Hawn and Midler in The First Wives Club, about three women whose husbands had left them for younger women.
More recently she collaborated with Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen and Candice Bergen on the Book Club films.
Keaton never married. She adopted a daughter, Dexter, in 1996 and a son, Duke, four years later.
Sky News has contacted Keaton’s agent for a comment.
Tom Hollander says he’s not worried about AI actors replacing real ones and thinks the creation of synthetic performers will only boost the value of authentic, live performance.
The 58-year-old plays entrepreneur Cameron Beck in The Iris Affair, a drama about the world’s most powerful quantum computer.
Dubbed “Charlie Big Potatoes” – it could eat ChatGPT for breakfast.
It’s a timely theme in a world where Artificial Intelligence is advancing at pace, and just last week, the world’s first AI starlet – Tilly Norwood – made her Hollywood debut.
Hollander is not impressed. He suggests rumours that Norwood is in talks with talent agencies are “a lot of old nonsense”, and questions the logistics of working with an AI actor, asking “Would it be, like a blue screen?”
Norwood – a pretty, 20-something brunette – is the creation of Dutch actor and comedian Eline Van der Velden and her AI production studio Particle6. It’s planning to launch its own AI talent studio, Xicoia, soon.
Hollander tells Sky News: “I’m perhaps not scared enough about it. I think the reaction against it is quite strong. And I think there’ll be some legal stuff. Also, it needs to be proven to be good. I mean, the little film that they did around her, I didn’t think was terribly interesting.”
The sketch – shared on social media and titled AI Commissioner – poked fun at the future of TV development in a post-AI world.
Stars including Emily Blunt, Natasha Lyonne and Whoopi Goldberg have objected to Norwood’s creation too, as has US actors’ union SAG-AFTRA.
Hollander compares watching an AI performer to watching a magic trick: “You know with your brain that you’re watching something that’s bullshit… If they don’t have to tell you, that would be difficult. But if they’ve told you it’s AI, then you’ll watch it with a different part of your brain.”
Pic: Sky Atlantic
Always screen-ready, with no ego and low salary requirements, Norwood is being billed as a studio’s dream hire. In line with Hollywood’s exacting standards for female beauty, she’ll also never age.
Hollander’s Iris Affair co-star Niamh Algar, who plays genius codebreaker Iris Nixon in the show, doesn’t feel threatened by this new kid on the block, poking fun at Norwood’s girl-next-door persona: “She’s a nightmare to work with. She’s always late. Takes ages in her trailer.”
But Algar adds: “I don’t want to work with an AI. No.”
She goes on, “I don’t think you can replicate. She’s a character, she’s not an actor.”
Pic: Sky Atlantic
Algar says the flaw in AI’s performance – scraped from the plethora of real performances that have come before it – is that we, as humans, are “excited by unpredictability”.
She says AI is “too perfect, we like flaws”.
Hollander agrees: “There’ll be a fight for authenticity. People will be going, ‘I refuse makeup. Give me less makeup, I want less makeup because AI can’t possibly mimic the blemishes on my face'”.
He even manages to pull a positive from the AI revolution: “It means that live performance will be more exciting than ever before…
“I think live performance is one antidote, and it’s certainly true in music, isn’t it? I mean, partly because they have to go on tour [to make money], but also because there’s just nothing like it and you can’t replace it.”
Algar enthusiastically adds: “Theatre’s going to kick off. It’s going to be so hot.”
Pic: Sky Atlantic
As for using AI themselves, while Hollander admits he’s used it recently for “a bit of problem solving”, Algar says she tries to avoid it, worrying “part of my brain is going to go dormant”.
Indeed, the impact of technology on our brains is a source of constant inspiration – and torture – for The Iris Affair screenwriter Neil Cross.
Cross, who also created psychological crime thriller Luther, tells Sky News: “We are at a hinge point in history.”
He says: “I’m interested in what technological revolution does to people. I have 3am thoughts about the poor man who invented the like button.
“He came up with a simple invention whose only intention was to increase levels of human happiness. How could something as simple as a like button go wrong? And it went so disastrously wrong.
“It’s caused so much misery and anxiety and unhappiness in the human race entire. If something as simple as a small like button can have such dire, cascading, unexpected consequences, what is this moment of revolution going to lead to?”
Indeed, Cross says he lives in “a perpetual state of terror”.
Supercomputer ‘Charlie Big Potatoes’. Pic: Sky Atlantic
He goes on: “I’m always going to be terrified of something. The world’s going to look very different. I think in 50 or 60 years’ time.
He takes a brief pause, then self-edits: “Probably 15 years’ time”.
With The Iris Affair’s central themes accelerating out of science fiction, and into reality, Cross’s examination of our instinctual fear of the unknown, coupled with our desire for knowledge that might destroy us is a powerful mix.
Cross concludes: “We’re in danger of creating God. And I think that’s the ultimate danger of AI. God doesn’t exist – yet.”
The Iris Affair is available from Thursday 16 October on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW
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