Heard
20.07.26 · Amsterdam
Two full Raye shows are online right now, and together they explain the hype
// Coda · 3 min read
If you want to understand what makes Raye the most argued-for live performer of her generation, you don't have to buy a ticket. Two complete shows are watchable from your couch right now, and they work best in order.
Start with the Royal Albert Hall film
On 26 September 2023, Raye reinvented her debut My 21st Century Blues with the Heritage Orchestra and the Flames Collective, a thirty-piece gospel choir, in one night at the Royal Albert Hall. The film of that evening, My 21st Century Symphony, aired on the BBC and now lives on Prime Video, Apple TV and Google Play, with the live album on every streaming service. It collected what a live film can collect: five stars from the Guardian, which called it "a triumphant act of independence and naked ambition", and Best Music Programme at the Broadcast Awards. A pop record, rebuilt as a symphony, by an artist who two years earlier had to fight her way off a major label to release an album at all.
Then the Montreux stream
Fast-forward to 3 July this year: Raye opened the 60th Montreux Jazz Festival with a one-night-only show built for the occasion. Alicia Keys and Mark Ronson walked out as guests. She opened with "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" for Nina Simone, who played Montreux on exactly that date fifty years earlier. And she slid from "Nightingale Lane" into Prince's "Purple Rain" because a fan online paired the two songs and Raye decided they were right. ARTE Concert filmed the whole evening, and the full stream is on their channels now.
Same voice, three years apart. The first show is an artist proving a point. The second is an artist with nothing left to prove, playing.
The run-up was just as good
Here's our angle: we photographed the climb. It started at a club show at Melkweg in Amsterdam in February 2023, seven months before that Royal Albert Hall night. Colin spotted her name on the Melkweg listings already a while before and called it on the spot: "I need to be there. Raye is going to be big one day." It was not the first time he has been right about someone on the rise (ask us about Doechii), but it might be the fastest.
After Melkweg came Superbloom in Munich that September. Sziget in 2024 we watched from the field, for once without cameras. Lollapalooza Berlin in 2025. Three shoots and time day off, each stage bigger than the last, and the through-line was the same every time: nobody up there was working harder than Raye.
Watch the films. Then check the tour dates. This is one you need to see live.
Credits
Raye was shot for Coda Photos by Colin Darbyshire at Melkweg (February 2023) and Lollapalooza Berlin (2025), and by Colin Darbyshire and Annelies Vollmuller at Superbloom (2023).
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