Raye on Finding Her Voice—and Her Future Husband - Time Magazine
It’s been a while since South London singer Raye was a supporting act for another artist. And honestly, she admits, the experience has been humbling at times. With two critically acclaimed studio albums and world tours of her own under her belt, the 28-year-old has racked up countless hours on stage. But opening for pop heavyweight Bruno Mars on his Romantic Tour means she’s facing stadium crowds of around 70,000, a scale that still intimidates her.
This story is part of the 2026 TIME100 Next. Read Anya Taylor-Joy’s tribute to Raye here.
“I think people know ‘Where Is My Husband!’” she tells me on a Zoom call from New Orleans, the 12th stop on her leg of the tour. The hit single has surpassed a billion streams on Spotify since its release a year ago, and she recently performed it at the 2026 MTV VMAs. But that recognition only goes so far when the audience has come to see someone else. “It’s that taste of humility, where you’re like, ‘Right, this person is just staring at me like they are bored out of their mind,’” she says. “But it encourages something within you that’s like, ‘I need to put on a good show for this person!’ It’s quite funny, but also healthy.”
Her determination was forged during years of early-career setbacks that tested her confidence. Raye, born Rachel Agatha Keen, was a teenager when she signed a four-album record deal with Polydor in 2014. She spent the next seven years struggling to release her debut through a label she says stifled her creativity and voice. In the meantime, she wrote songs for global superstars like Beyoncé, Charli XCX, and John Legend while yearning for her own moment in the spotlight.
She reached a breaking point in 2021, making a public plea on social media: “I’ve done everything they asked me, I switched genres, I worked 7 days a week, ask anyone in the music game, they know. I’m done being a polite pop star. I want to make my album now, please that is all I want.” At the time, a Polydor spokesperson said the label was "saddened" by Raye’s posts and had contacted her management team “to discuss and offer [its] full support.” Soon after, Raye was released from her contract and began a new era as an independent artist, co-managed by her parents, Sarah and Paul Keen.
Reflecting on that pivotal moment during an interview on a scorching hot July day in east London, Raye recalls how her pain drove her to speak out. “The catalyst came when I just had no fear of the worst case scenario anymore,” she says. “Genuinely, I had zero expectations. It was spur of the moment and impulsive, and I was very, very, very emotional and very hurt, and in a lot of pain.”
She channeled the trauma of those difficult years into her 2023 debut album, My 21st Century Blues, which has been streamed more than 2 billion times on Spotify. The album’s breakout single, “Escapism,” a raw depiction of a young woman lost in a cycle of avoidance and addiction, went viral on TikTok, fueled by fans’ sped-up versions of the track. Raye embraced the trend, releasing a sped-up rendition of her own. The original reached No. 1 on the U.K. charts nearly three months after its release. A record-breaking six wins at the 2024 Brit Awards, followed by three Grammy nominations later that year, was a sign of her growing global appeal.
The record offered an unflinching look at her struggles with substance abuse and heartache. In one track, "Ice Cream Man," she details the sexual assault she experienced as a young woman in the music industry. The song resonated with audiences worldwide and won the Harry Belafonte Best Song For Social Change Award at this year’s Grammys. “A lot of my first album was very cathartic,” she says. “We touched on some heavy stuff. We were able to create a space of emotion and reckoning.”
If Raye’s first album documented her unraveling, her sophomore record, This Music May Contain Hope, captures her piecing herself back together. The album, which has been shortlisted for a Mercury Prize, covers a whole spectrum of emotion, with hope at its center. Songs titled “I Will Overcome” and “Happier Times Ahead” are infused with powerful affirmations, the kind one might repeat in the mirror before they face the day: “Happier times are coming, alright?/ The sun exists behind the clouds/ It's right there, just hold onto happier times, alright, darling.” That determination and resilience runs through the 17-track record. “In the wild and difficult times the world is in right now, I just wanted to make something that had hope laced in it,” she says. “I knew I needed some, and I knew from playing so many shows that the audiences needed some, too.”
A sense of home also permeates the record. In “Beware.. The South London Lover Boy,” she cheekily warns other women about the smooth-talking, Lime bike-riding “strange creatures” lurking on the streets where she grew up. The humor gives away to heartache in “Nightingale Lane,” a ballad she introduces as documenting the “greatest heartbreak I have ever known.” Named after a road in Balham, South London, the song follows Raye through familiar places that hold memories of a former love.
Earlier this year, Raye and her team placed an unofficial Blue Plaque—which typically denotes a building’s historical link to a notable figure—outside The Nightingale pub, her ex’s favorite drinking spot, to promote the song and make sure “he’ll never forget” what happened. “I thought the pub would've taken it down by now, but [it’s] still up there,” she says, with a laugh. “You’ve just gotta be creative when you're independent and try different things, you know?”
Yet, in the months leading up to the album’s March release, Raye worried about how it would be received. During what she describes as a “silly moment,” the singer even wondered if she had already peaked. Her debut album had set what felt like impossibly high standards and she questioned if she’d “ever have a No. 1 again.” Everything fell into place once she chose “Where Is My Husband!” as the lead track. She had a feeling fellow “single girls” would relate to her frustration with waiting to find a worthy partner, a hunch that turned out to be right. The song topped the U.K. charts in January and became the soundtrack to countless engagement videos and dating chronicles across social media.
The song encapsulates Raye as an artist: an undeniably pop sound, but with a big-band twist and elements of jazz and funk that defy easy categorization. Her refusal to be boxed into a genre was fueled by her experience coming of age in an industry that told her “to pick a sound.” At the TIME photoshoot, early-2000s tracks ring out across the studio until Raye raises a hand and asks for “something else, something jazz.” Soon, Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” fills the room, with Raye adding her own riffs and runs.
This fusion of traditional and contemporary extends to Raye’s live shows. She performs with a big band, but at one point in her set, giant lightbulbs that spell out “RAYE” are tweaked to spell “RAVE.” (A drunk fan pitched her the idea at a festival a few years ago.) “I love having a nightclub segment in my shows and I love jazz,” she says. “Those are two polarizing genres, they're not supposed to be allowed to coexist, but it's really exciting to be able to get on stage and sing ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ with a seven-piece brass section and then go into letting everyone jump and have green lasers. Why not?”
Realizing she could bring all of these impulses together and take control of her own creative direction was a turning point. “A massive part of that has come from just removing any external opinions,” she says. “It's important to have people who can give you a great perspective, but you don't need too many cooks in the kitchen.” By liberating herself of others’ expectations, Raye was able to tune back into the voice that mattered most: her own. “Being able to clear that noise out allowed me to give myself permission to just do what feels right,” she says.
Raye’s close-knit network is with her on set. Her mother is present, as is her teenage sister, Katelyn, who dutifully captures behind-the-scenes photos throughout the day. “She’s got a great eye,” Raye says with pride. Her other sisters, Absolutely and Amma, are emerging musicians in their own right; both feature on her album and have previously joined her on tour. Raye’s grateful for the close bond they share, especially because it hasn’t always been that way. “I navigated a whole journey very distant from my family, and it just wasn't ideal for me,” she says. “This job and career path is so weird, in the most amazing way, but also confusing. We're put on pedestals and I’m treated as ‘Raye the artist.’ If you nurture that too much, you can lose your way. My family really helped ground me.”
Raye has also learned to set clear boundaries in her life. “‘No’ is my favorite word, which is really cool because for my whole life, I'd be like, ‘Okay, yes,” she recalls. “You’re not a mean person to say ‘no.’ You're not being selfish. You have to really do the work to learn [that].”
The singer is still learning to show herself grace as she navigates life’s complexities in front of an audience. Some days, it’s a harder task than others. “I had a tough gig the other day, where I had a lump in my throat from before I even went on stage,” she says. “You know when you get that lump and it’s just gonna take one little thing to just set you off?” Afterward, Raye apologized for the “bad vibes” in a group chat with her band, who reassured her that being open about her emotions is a good thing. “Some days we’re smiling and some days it’s hard,” she says. “And that day I wanted the ground to swallow me and I wanted to run off the stage, you know? But I told the crowd, ‘I’m having a hard day.’ And I did my best.”
When she’s feeling particularly lost, Raye turns to one of her idols: Aretha Franklin. “I watch that biopic and I’m just so inspired by her story,” she says. “I cry my eyes out and then be like, ‘I’m gonna keep trying.’”
Raye also protects her mental space by limiting her social media time. She doesn’t know the password to her Instagram account, for example. Instead, she approaches her team when she wants to log in for a short amount of time. “Them things can have me scrolling for hours, and then I'll start deep diving and looking at stuff I don't need to be looking at, so it's just better for my head and my heart,” she says.
After a whirlwind few months, Raye is preparing to enter the final year of her 20s and has high hopes for what lies ahead. “I'm excited to see what my 30s are going to teach me,” she says. Career-wise, she’s determined to keep evolving and is set to make her film acting debut in Lineage, an upcoming crime thriller from Top Boy director Yann Demange. She has also teased an upcoming project with Michael B. Jordan, though the details remain under wraps.
Even as she welcomes these new opportunities, music will always take top billing. But a third album will have to wait. “I’m falling in love first!” she quips, before we part ways.
Now, where the hell is that husband?
Art Direction and Set Art by Jana Frost for TIME; Photography by Stefano Giuliano for TIME; Hair by Alex Price at Eighteen Management; Makeup by Olly Fisk at Stella Creative Artists; Nails by Angel at A-Frame Agency; Styling by Eniola Dare; Cover: Harris Reed corset and skirt, Audemars Piguet watch; Ladder look: Schiaparelli dress, Audemars Piguet watch; Instrument look: Alexander McQueen dress, Sonia Petroff earrings, Audemars Piguet watch; Boat look: Dreaming Eli dress, The Hirst Collection earrings, Audemars Piguet watch.
