FROM ESTATE TO A RECORD SIX BRIT WINS
You just don’t understand what this means to me ...I’m ugly crying on TV
Growing up on a council estate, musical super stardom wasn’t a typical career path for a girl like Rachel Agatha Keen but the talented British singer was determined to make it, no matter what.
Now better known as Raye, she is not just an award-winner, she’s a recordbreaker 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, Songwriter 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, starting of course with her now-famous gran, Agatha Dawson.
“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, added: “You just don’t understand what this means to me. I’m ugly crying on national television.
“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 Ghanaian-swiss 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 Yorkshireman dad even created a makeshift home studio for her.
“I think I was about 10 when I decided I wanted to take it 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 in her 20s, 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”.
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 No.3 in the UK singles chart. And she began working with Stormzy and penning songs for Beyonce, Little Mix, Rihanna, David Guetta, John Legend and Ellie Goulding.
Yet what she really wanted – success in her own right – was eluding the girl from Croydon, South London. She has since claimed Polydor hung on to her album for years and didn’t release it. “I have been on a fouralbum 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 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 believes played a massive part 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 said previously.
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 early in her career.
But it would seem 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
We’d put a duvet over the door as a sound buffer
ON THE MAKESHIFT HOME STUDIO DAD BUILT
heroes are – people like her mum, who works for the NHS.
“I know they get paid terribly,” she 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.