Raye on the big risk behind her biggest success

Singer-songwriter Raye's smash hit "Where Is My Husband!" has sold 1.2 million copies in the U.K. "That's cool, isn't it?" she said.

Asked why she felt the song has resonated to such a degree, she replied, "The bit that connected first was that funny, tongue-twistery bridge":

I would like a ring, I would like a ring
I would like a diamond ring on my wedding finger
I would like a big and shiny diamond
That I could wave around and talk and talk about it

To watch Raye perform "Where Is My Husband!" click on the video player below:

She may not have a ring yet, but "Where Is My Husband!" has more than a billion streams on Spotify. Not bad consolation! "Now, it's like the wedding song, which is so hilarious, because it's actually a song about how single I am!" she laughed.

That song is on Raye's second album, "This Music May Contain Hope," which Rolling Stone called "a hugely ambitious swing for the fences."

She gravitates toward maximalism on stage, and at home, where her songwriting can start quite organically. "I just, I don't know, play around something until I like it, and then it makes me feel something," she said. "I do take notes, always jotting stuff down. I am creatively on strike at the moment though, which is quite nice."

Meaning, what? "Meaning I poured out so much in this last album, I really, really, really went for it, and I think I'm in a place where I don't want to write about certain things anymore. Being alone? I'm just over that, and expressing songs with, like, negative or frustrated connotations about la la la la la, this guy sucked and this was rubbish. I'm just done with that!"

The 28-year-old artist, born Rachel Keen, grew up in London, and has been making music since she was a teen. "I, at 14, had started my songwriting career. I was like, I want to work, let's do the work," she said.

Let's do the work, at 14? "I don't know why!" she said. "I was like, 'Dad, I want to be a musician, I want to be a singer, I want to be a writer.' My uncle got me a laptop for my 13th birthday, and I was making demos. I wasn't the most amazing singer, but the writing was distinctly me."

Asked to define what "distinctly me" means, Raye replied, "Something I've always enjoyed doing was syncopate my words, and maybe sometimes do more words than I should in a certain section."

Remembering her lyrics, she says, can be hard. "I started forgetting my lyrics and I'm like, This is not good." That's when a mic-to-audience gesture comes in handy.

Send the call out, send the call out
Calling all my baddest women, it's about to go down
Click click click clack symphony, I need that
Click click click clack symphony, I love the sound of it
Who let the girls out? I did, I did, darling
She's empowered by the sound of us marching
Her legs are hurting, but her back is still arching
And this sound reminds me that it's going to be alright
From "Click Clack Symphony"

At just 17, Raye got a record deal. But after seven years, she says her music sat collecting dust, while the label had her writing and singing for others.

"I learnt what I don't want: to share art of any form that I'm not proud of, to put my name on something that I don't like," she said. "I had no control over what I sounded like, what I was supposed to sing. I didn't feel like I had a choice."

Ultimately, Raye took her personal battle with the label Polydor public. "My tweets and my messaging got a lot of attention, and actually, I think, allowed me for the first time some leverage and some power and a voice that had to be listened to," she said.

Polydor let her out of the contract. She had no label to back her – or hold her back. As an independent artist, she faces a lot of risk, a lot of cost. "Yes, yes, a lot of cost, but to me, an amazing reward," she said. "I can choose what to invest, for instance. I love to put on the most amazing show, and I love to fill the stage with musicians, and that is not cheap. That's not necessarily cost-effective, or the smartest way to do things if my focus is profit. But that's not the case."

Raye performs "Five Star Hotels" at London's Royal Albert Hall:

Now it's a family affair. Her father is manager, and her sisters, who are performers with their own careers -- Abby (who goes by the stage name Absolutely), and Lauren (a.k.a. Amma) – are featured on the new album.

Asked how it was mixing family and work, Amma said, "Before we went on tour, I was a little bit worried. I was thinking, three of us in the same space for so long, including mum and dad, has to be an explosion. But it brought us closer."

Over the years that closeness has been tested. On her first album, 2023's "My 21st Century Blues," Raye sings about being sexually assaulted as a young woman in the music industry. She coped with drugs and alcohol – putting that into song, too.

In the back of the taxi sniffin' cocaine
Drunk calls, drunk texts, drunk tears, drunk sex
I was lookin' for a man who was on the same page
Now it's back to the intro, back to the bar
To the Bentley, to the hotel, to my old ways …
I don't wanna feel how I did last night
From "Escapism"

Amma was living with her sister when Raye was going through her lowest points. Asked how it was to see her that way, Amma replied, "It was pretty traumatic. It would be me that had to double-check she was okay and, yeah, she was still alive frankly. I was only 18, so yeah, I was that worried."

Asked if there were boundaries in writing songs that are so autobiographical, Raye said, "When I'm writing, I think it really is from a place of necessity when it's painful. I think that's my way of getting to win."

Raye is winning, and undeterred. She's processed a lot though her music. Next up? Her third album, which she says will be titled "And Then She Fell In Love." "[It's] going be a great album," she smiled. "I don't know when it's going to come out, but what I do know is, it's going to be so lovely. It's going to be warm. Track one is going to be like, love is amazing. Track two, Wednesday's a great day to be in love, you know?

"I believe in miracles, do you know what I mean?"

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with Raye (Video)