RAYE believes having her songwriting books for her new album go missing was a “blessing in disguise”.
The ‘Escapism’ hitmaker was left gutted after her handwritten lyrics for her follow-up to her acclaimed album 2023 ‘My 21st Century Blues’ went missing when her car was stolen.
At the time, the 27-year-old BRIT Award-winner told fans they would have to wait a while longer for her to write her second album.
She wrote on Instagram last month: “It’s my birthday and my car got stolen with all my song writing books in the boot so no second album any time soon love you bye.”
However, in hindsight, RAYE believes “everything happens for a reason” and she has had to “let go” of the fact she won’t make the same songs.
Speaking on the red carpet at the 2024 MTV EMAs at Manchester’s Co-Op Live on Sunday (10.11.24), she is quoted by the BBC as saying: “I’ve just had to let it go.
“You let it go, because you think you can come back to it – and now there are so many ideas that are just gone. It’s so sad.
“Everything happens for a reason. I’ll have to start again and maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.”
On her birthday, RAYE had a cake made with icing reading “sorry ur car got stolen (sic)”.
Since the release of her first album, RAYE – who broke the record for the most wins and nominations for an artist in a single year with her six prizes at the BRIT Awards earlier this year – has released the “deeply personal” seven-minute-long song, ‘Genesis’, which she described as “a prayer and a plea and a cry for help” in troubled times.
In a statement, she said: “There is a Nina Simone quote, ‘It is an artist’s duty to reflect the times.’ This quote is everything to me and I believe the best way I can try to do this is through my art and my music.
“There is so much darkness and pain in this world we live in, and I wanted to create something both as deeply personal and as raw as I could find myself to be about my own mind and the world I see around me.”
She added: “The song is a seven-minute piece that I have crafted and scrutinised over the last year and a half, experimenting with different genres and sonic expressions, beneath all the layers and the lyrics, the underlying message is ‘Let There Be Light’.
“It is a prayer and a plea and a cry for help, and I really hope this song will be able to bring some hope, the way this music does for me, to those who need it most.”