Get the latest gossip

Raye’s record-breaking Brits defied the limited imaginations of the British music industry

Raye’s six Brit awards marked a huge vindication for the newly independent artist and rightly shamed the major label that apparently couldn’t see her potential

In 2021, Raye posted a tearful plea to social media saying that her label had denied her the opportunity to make even one of the four albums on her deal, and that dozens of what she considered potential hits – among them the No 1 single Escapism, tonight named as the year’s best song – were languishing on a hard drive. While no one should forget exactly how she aced her second act, it’s also worth noting that Raye isn’t a household name, and that if the increasingly irrelevant Brit awards is good for anything, it’s that her extraordinary, medley-style performance and overall prominence this evening will have exposed her to a whole new audience – televised platforms for the best of British music not exactly being in vast supply in 2024. There were still WTF moments: in best dance act, Calvin Harris beat Fred Again, who – Miracle aside – was far more culturally penetrating in the last year; Jungle winning best group over Young Fathers is a triumph of sports montage music over genuinely provocative art that underscores the absurdities in paranoid Britain’s identity crisis while embodying a progressive multicultural alternative.

Get the Android app