RAYE installs album artwork display outside former label’s office

RAYE has celebrated the release of her debut album ‘My 21st Century Blues’ by building an installation of the structure on the cover outside her former record label’s office.

• READ MORE: RAYE – ‘My 21st Century Blues’ review: a triumphant, hard-fought debut

The artist has had a hard-fought battle to release her debut album. Despite signing a four-album deal with Polydor in 2014, she claimed in 2021 that the label prevented her from releasing an album, and three weeks later, was released from her contract.

Now, with her debut finally out, RAYE marked the occasion by building an installation of the structure on the artwork of ‘My 21st Century Blues’ outside the Polydor office. “Maybe I was petty and built this installation in front of my old record label,” she said in a TikTok.  The video was accompanied by the caption, “I find myself in a great position,” in an inversion of the lyric “I find myself in a shit position,” from her recent Number One hit ‘Escapism’.

In a four-star review of ‘My 21st Century Blues’, NME wrote: RAYE recently said that [her] bold and brave declarations wouldn’t have been released had she still been signed to a major label. Granted her creative independence, though, the hard-fought ‘My 21st Century Blues’ is unequivocally RAYE from start to finish.”

@raye

I find myself in a great position #my21stcenturyblues #m21cb #raye #escapism

♬ Escapism. – Super Sped Up – RAYE

RAYE also recently spoke out about her “dangerous” experience of substance abuse in the past, which stemmed from her experiences of sexual assault and her unhappiness about her career. A lyric from her song ‘Ice-Cream Man’ revealed that she had been sexually assaulted by an unnamed producer.

“When you keep things in like that, they eat away at you from the inside,” RAYE told the BBC in an interview. “And for me, sadly, substance abuse was entangled with numbing the trauma that I had experienced.”

She continued: “I got pretty deep in and it got really dangerous at one point.”

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