In a blue Daily Paper bomber jacket, baggy jeans and neon wraparounds, Ray BLK slips into one of The Hoxton Southwark’s swish apartment suites: all Noughties Missy vibes and understated confidence, an opinionated and funny presence from the off.
‘I’ve really been trying to stop listening to LBC,’ she says when I start with an out-of-politeness enquiry about how her taxi ride over here was. ‘It gets you worked up. And then your head is just like anger and anxiety, stress. James O’Brien was talking about the whole issue of Boris Johnson not handing over his phone, wanting to show everything and just lying about it, and Rishi Sunak has taken the judge to court to basically pervert the course of justice. It’s crazy that number one, like no real media is talking about this. And number two, I’m Nigerian: and as a Nigerian, people will often say, like, how corrupt it is. And it is obviously corrupt. But it’s like, this is a global issue…’
More locally, the music industry, too, is ‘all politics’ says Ray. ‘If it’s not you fighting against injustice, sometimes it’s you being used as the poster girl or poster man to make it seem like everything’s fine. Let’s quickly just put this Black face out there to be like, “Okay, we’ve ticked the box now.”’
This is something Ray has a chance to explore in her debut acting role in Candice Carty-Williams’ BBC drama Champions, about a sibling rivalry played out across south London’s music scene. The show centres on famous rapper Bosco (Top Boy’s Malcolm Kamulete), fresh out of prison and ready to regain his crown and his little sister Vita (Déja J Bowens), who has been writing his songs and doing his bidding in his shadow for too long. Ray — who also exec produced the show’s music — plays Honey, Vita’s ballsy best friend and fledgling singer who gets caught in the crosshairs of the brother-sister battle.
‘What I love [about Champion] is that it really does show the realities of being in the music industry. You want to believe that talent should be it. But not everybody gets it: it’s not a level playing field,’ says Ray. ‘I think a lot of people will feel attached to her [Honey’s] journey, because we’ve all been the underdog before.’
Ray’s own experience of breaking into the industry was ‘not exactly like Honey’s, but definitely grassroots’, she says. Born Rita Ekwere in Nigeria in 1994, before moving to Catford as a toddler, she has been in the industry a long time. ‘I was just looking for any opportunity to sing from when I was young. I was in every school choir, church choir. I was in a band with my friend MNEK like when we were about 14.’
Although this is Ray’s debut TV role, she attended the prestigious Identity School of Acting (whose alumni include John Boyega, Letitia Wright and Damson Idris). At university she was told by her agent that ‘you can’t be one foot in, one foot out’. Unwilling to embarrass her parents and drop out of her ‘fallback plan’, she instead refocused on writing music alongside seminars. 2015’s resulting EP, Havisham, was the perfect blend of her two passions: inspired by the Dickens character straight from her university reading list and grabbing the attention of UK hip hop heavy hitters and landing her a deal with a major label. And as Ray moved on from gigging for £50 at east London bars to claiming the BBC Sound of 2017, her fans were getting higher and higher profile: Julie Adenuga, Giggs and Stormzy, who soon signed on to feature on her hit ‘My Hood’, an ode to the area that made them both.
Still, Ray says, ‘I never say I’m a rapper. As a female, you get side-eyed like, “okay, yeah”, especially when people know you as a singer; it’s just expected that a man will be better. So I feel like you have to come twice as hard as a female rapper. I’ve been blessed to collaborate with some of the greats in the UK. So I guess that comes with them thinking you’re good enough.’ She adds that there can be discomfort around singers rapping. ‘My thing is like, it’s really just about lyricism. Songs are poetry and rap is a form of poetry. I just feel like: how would it be ludicrous to think that someone who writes lyrics could rap? All of my favourite artists, I feel like at some point, rap. Lauryn Hill, obviously, is a rapper. Mary J Blige, who I love, she’s rapped on a couple of her records. I strongly believe in exercising all of your talents.’
There is an authenticity to Champion that resonated with Ray. It addresses those discomforts of life in the music industry. Like when Vita is taken to a studio, where she’s instructed to record the cringe-inducing ‘Dancing in My Underwear’ by the producer. ‘I co-wrote that song. When I was at a major record label, I went through a lot of being guided down paths that I didn’t feel were necessarily true to who I am. They’re primarily concerned with, “We need a big hit, whatever it is. We don’t care if you’re singing about your hairbrush…” I was in that model,’ she says. ‘I feel like people in the industry are gonna watch this show and be triggered.’
The filming of Champion, however, where everyone from showrunner Carty-Williams, through crew and on to cast were in the majority Black, was refreshing. ‘A few people on set said I was a bit spoilt as it’s not normally like that. It was great, one of the producers Danielle Scott-Haughton has even been made a commissioner at the BBC. But it’s so important to see different races, different faces, different people from different backgrounds, so that everyone’s stories can be a true reflection.’
And next? As well as releasing Champion’s lead single, ‘My Girl’, Ray is putting the finishing touches to a new album, coming later this year — her first since departing Island Records. ‘I’ve been able to go back to writing about things I care about: mental health, abuse in a relationship and the breakdown of friendships. The life I was really going through. I always want to make music with purpose. Who are we reaching and helping as much as it being a good tune?’ And there’s another, surprising, ambition. ‘I’ve always said to myself, I’m gonna write a musical,’ she laughs. ‘My approach to writing choruses is I want it to be something people want to sing along to — like they’re from a musical. I’m desperate to be like Andrew Lloyd Webber one day.’
