JADE has hailed Raye as “a one-of-a-kind, generational talent”.
The former Little Mix star, whose full name is Jade Thirlwall, has worked with Raye before when she penned songs for the girl group and her subsequent solo career, and she compared the 29-year-old singer to the likes of Etta James and Diana Ross.
She told GQ magazine: “Before I met Raye properly, she wrote for Little Mix, and so I already knew of her as an incredible songwriter. I do believe that she is a one-of-a-kind, generational talent.
“She manages to bridge the gap between the nostalgia and glamour of artists like Diana Ross and Etta James – she has that flair – but with such an innovative writing style, which is so modern and so her.”
Before launching her own career, Raye wrote for the likes of Little Mix, Beyonce, John Legend and Charli XCX.
JADE added: “Some people just radiate warm, lovely, kind and open energy. She is the kind of person that I imagine it would be very difficult not to like.”
Speaking to the same outlet about her own sound, Raye recalled complaints that her 2026 album This Music May Contain Hope was a bit too much and couldn’t be used as background music.
She said: “I love that. It is maximalist. It is dramatic.”
The Where Is My Husband! singer had huge ambitions for This Music May Contain Hope following the success of 2023’s My 21st Century Blues, and back in May she revealed how the pressure she put on herself took a real toll.
She told Billboard: “There just comes a time in your life where, like, you have to, or you choose to, prioritise something over another, so I think in my case, like, work has really been my life for the last year, two years, three years.
“But I think this last year with this album, and the amount of touring, and just the vibe in general, I’ve really definitely pushed myself to, like, my limit.”
Reflecting on the intense schedule, she added that she was “really happy” to have worked as hard as she did, but she wanted “a little bit more balance” after the LP dropped, focusing on “shows and rest time”.
RAYE said the pressure was entirely self‑driven, explaining that the scale of the project was something she chose to take on.
She said: “By the way, like, I was the one who chose to make an album like this, and I was the one who had all these ambitious goals and ideas for it, and things I wanted to do and achieve.”