The rise of Raye - The story behind the UK's record breaking new star
Growing up on a council estate near Croydon, musical super stardom wasn’t a typical career path for a girl like Rachel Agatha Keen but the talented British singer was keen to make it, no matter what.
Now better known as Raye, she is not just an award-winner, she’s a record-breaking award winner having taken home more BRIT Awards on one night than any other artist before her. But the highlight of Saturday’s show was not Raye going up to collect her six gongs for Best Artist, Album, Song, New Artist, Pop Act and R&B Act. It was the moment she broke down in tears, thanking her grandmother, and bringing her up on stage.
Because the 26-year-old star knows: Raye would just be plain old Rachel Keen, without her tight-knit and talented family. In fact she’s previously credited each and every one of them, s starting of course with her now-famous gran, Agatha Dawson.
Raye (right) pictured with sisters, Abby, Katelyn and Lauren with her father Paul“I want to thank my grandma for her prayers,” Raye said on stage at London’s O2. “My grandma is awake until 3am praying for me and my beautiful sisters. I love you so much. My middle name is Agatha and this is Agatha Dawson.”
Raye, who has dreamed of becoming a musician since she was 10-years-old, later added: “You just don’t understand what this means to me. I’m ugly crying on national television.
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“All I ever wanted to be was an artist, and now I’m an artist with an album of the year. Thank you so much, this is too much. Come on, Grandma, let’s go.”
Music certainly runs in her family. Raye’s grandfather was a songwriter and musician and her mum Sarah met the singer’s dad, Paul, at church where he was the musical director and she performed in the choir. Paul is also Raye’s manager, as well as looking after the interests of two of her younger sisters, Lauren and Abby, who are both making waves as talented young singer/songwriters. And even if their youngest sibling Katelyn decides not to follow suit, the Keens are primed for a musical family dynasty.
Raye has previously told how her dad was a great support creating a makeshift home studio for her.
“I think I was about 10 when I decided I wanted to take it (music) very seriously, which was cute,” she said. “Anywhere I could sing or play – I learned to play piano early on – I would, so charity gigs, church, the school talent show. When I was 10, my dad made a little set-up in the house. We’d put a duvet over the door so it acted as a sound buffer and I started recording songs, covers using a mic we’d bought.”
But Raye didn’t want to be just another pop star. She said: “It’s been a real journey for me, in my career, of wanting to be seen as a musician. If I feel like I’m achieving anything, I’m beginning to achieve that.”
And although she’s still only 26, it’s been a rocky ride to stardom. When she was 14, she was accepted into the Brit School for Performing Arts, whose alumni include the likes of Adele, Lily Allen and Katie Melua. Yet Raye dropped out after just two years because she felt “confined”.
Raye received a Mercury nod last year for her album My 21st Century Blues (Dave Hogan/Hogan Media/REX/Shutterstock)She then self-released her 2014 EP Welcome to the Winter, which brought her to the attention of Polydor, who signed her aged 17 on a four-album deal. Aged 19, she was the vocal on Jax Jones’ dance hit You Don’t Know Me which reached number three in the UK singles chart. And she began working with Stormzy and penning songs for Beyoncé, Little Mix, Rihanna, David Guetta, John Legend and Ellie Goulding.
Yet what she really wanted – success in her own right – was eluding her. She has since claimed Polydor hung on to her album for years and didn’t release it. “I have been on a four-album record deal since 2014. And haven’t been allowed to put out one album,” she told her followers.
She finally split with the label in 2022, and hasn’t looked back. Her song Escapism (featuring 070 Shake) became her first UK no.1. Then last year, she independently released My 21st Century Blues – the album that saw her nominated for the Mercury Prize last year and then set the BRITs on fire. But it’s her early days performing in the church that Raye credits with a big hand in her success.
“Because I grew up singing in church, I got used to performing in front of people from a really young age,” she has said.
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It was her faith and family that also helped her with other hurdles. She has been open about earlier struggles with body dysmorphia, an eating disorder and anxiety. And she has also revealed how she had been sexually assaulted by a record producer earlier in her career. But it would seem she ultimately she had the last laugh. She was actually nominated for seven BRITs but both Escapism and Prada were up for Song of the Year.
Her six wins put her two awards ahead of the previous record holders, Adele, Harry Styles and Blur. Now Raye may be on her way to becoming a British icon but she has no qualms about who the nation’s real heroes are – people like her mum, who works for the NHS.
“I know they get paid terribly,” she has said. “Free healthcare is something really beautiful that a lot of countries don’t have, so I just think we really have to protect our healthcare system.”
It might not have been quite as good as getting to stand on stage with her at the BRITs, but having your famous daughter fight your corner is something at least. Clearly when it comes to the family who have helped Rachel become Raye, she won’t forget their part in her success anytime soon.
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