RAYE has a pair of collaborations coming out with Mark Ronson, and the British singer nearly shied away from working with the esteemed producer due to his connection to the late Amy Winehouse, whom RAYE has drawn comparisons to.
The first collab is titled “Suzanne” and is slated to arrive on Friday. People caught up with RAYE backstage at Governors Ball in NYC over the weekend, where she opened up about her initial hesitancy to team up with Ronson, who predominantly produced Winehouse’s final album, Back to Black, alongside Salaam Remi in 2006.
“Honestly, I’m not gonna lie, I actually was quite nervous and scared to work with him,” she admitted. “I just do want to say that I know I can never, ever, ever, ever, ever attempt to replace or imitate Amy. I’m in awe of her. We all are, and we miss her.”
RAYE continued: “It’s quite a tough thing to even allow myself to create so freely with him,” she says. “But I really just wanted to be like, ‘Do you know what? I just need to forget what anyone else is gonna say about this.’ I absolutely love this producer. I’ve always wanted to work with this producer since I was a little girl.”
Their second collaboration is set to be released later in June, with “Grandma Calls the Boy Bad News” slated to land on the F1 soundtrack.
“We’ve made music together that I’m so proud of, and I love,” she gushed. “I play it, and it makes me happy and joyful, so I’m proud.”
The “Escapism” singer’s next album is starting to take shape, but she’s stuck without a title for the project, which follows her acclaimed 2023 LP, My 21st Century Blues.
“I don’t have an album title,” RAYE said. “I’m like, ‘What is it gonna be called?’ It’s stressing me out right now, I can’t lie, because I’ve got the music starting to really come there. I just don’t know what this album’s gonna be called. In my humble opinion, My 21st Century Blues is such a fire album title, and I can’t hand in an album title that’s less good than that.”