“I warned you, dear listener, didn’t I?” Raye declares halfway through her new album. “When I told you this was a sad, sad, saaaad song?” She isn’t joking about that. The south London belter has a story to tell on This Music May Contain Hope, and it’s an epic autobiography of romantic despair and nonstop emotional turmoil. Her mighty pipes are as unstoppable as her flair for mascara-melting melodrama.
It’s only the second album Raye has ever made, but it’s the first since she scored her global breakthrough last year, with her fantastic hit “Where Is My Husband?” She caught the world’s ear with her jazzy torch ballad, pleading for her Prince Charming to hurry up and find her, fuming, “This man is testing me!”
On This Music May Contain Hope, the 28-year-old Rachel Keen expands the song to album size — and then some. It’s a lavish 73-minute narrative, spread out over four season-themed acts and 17 songs. “I am a sob story,” she confesses in “Winter Woman,” but she makes no apologies for that at all. It’s one long pageant starring Raye as not just the main character, but the only character, piling on the Old Hollywood strings and juicy narrative detail. She packs it full of old-school show-tune razzle-dazzle, big-band swing frills, retro Sixties R&B, the occasional club beat, and an endless supply of glamorously tragic scenarios.
“Allow me to set the scene,” Raye says in the opening moments. “Our story begins at 2:27 a.m. on a rainy night in Paris. Cue the thunder!” But Raye wants to be the thunder in this story. She’s the heroine, stumbling in her stilettos back to her hotel room. “She has no umbrella, she is seven negronis deep, and she nurses a hole she is desperately trying to fill.” Nobody at the bar even noticed her in her chic red dress, so she’s by herself, unzipping her own dress and removing her lashes. In her head, she hears the voice of the man who recently dumped her. On her phone, there’s a voice note from her grandmother saying “Call me please. We need to pray.”
It sounds like the perfect recipe for an emotional crisis. But for Raye, as it turns out, this is just a typical night. “I Will Overcome” sets the tone as she gives herself a pep talk, declaring, “This is a song to remind me/Since I needed one/I will overcome.” She staggers home alone, counting the steps in her head, since her phone battery died a few drinks ago, but then throws herself a solitary late-night party where she listens to her Edith Piaf records, eats chocolate cake, jumps up and down on her bed. “It’s funny,” she muses. “Some people say I remind them of Amy.” But that’s no surprise, given that she’s self-consciously gunning for the Winehouse legacy in so many ways.
Her best songs are her witty tales of romantic espionage in London after dark. “The South London Lover Boys” warns about a lothario who turns on the flirtatious banter (“I’m too toxic for you, darling,” he tells her — and she swoons) over bouncy, brassy jazz pop. “He’ll pull up on you in an all-black car,” she sings, “And start reading you poems out the window.” She tangles with a similar adversary in “The WhatsApp Shakespeare,” who wins her heart, but then burns her with his “weapons of mass seduction.” She’s a Juliet who falls hard for this Romeo, only to find that she’s just one of seven leading ladies “starring in the new romantic thriller, presenting The WhatsApp Shakespeare Killer.”
She gets help from her crew of producers, including Chris Hill, Tom Richards, and Pete Clements. “Click Clack Symphony” is an ode to the sound of heels on the city street, as she and her girls head out for a night on the town, orchestrated by the film-soundtrack composer Hans Zimmer. But “Winter Woman” is the weepy flip side — heading home alone after striking out at the club, making the driver pull over at the petrol station for a bottle of gin. “Skin & Bones” ups the tempo, with its clever tweaks from 1970s Aretha Franklin soul (“Rock Steady”) and 1980s Taana Gardner disco (“Heartbeat”).
“Goodbye Henry” is a tribute to vintage Memphis R&B, with the album’s biggest surprise: a duet with the legend Al Green himself. Raye, not one to underplay a dramatic moment, gives him a splashy “Ladies and gentlemen!” introduction. “Hello, hi, hope you’re doing well!” the Rev. Green greets her. “It’s nice to be on the microphone with a story to tell.” (Drummer Mike Brooks adds an impressively precise Al Jackson Jr. backbeat.) She duets with her grandfather in “Fields” — she calls him to ask if he gets this lonely too — and sings “Joy” with her sisters Amma and Absolutely.
The obvious comparison would be Lily Allen’s West End Girl, another heartbreak concept album that captured the public imagination by aiming big, narrative-wise, stretching out the story song by song. Both Allen and Raye challenge the listener to keep up with the plot twists, defying all the conventional wisdom about the audience’s attention span these days. Both albums get scathingly honest about two-timing exes. But while Allen chronicles the down side of marriage, divorce, and parenthood, Raye’s turf is first love and the twentysomething dating pool. (If she thinks it sucks not having a husband, she may wish to consult Allen about what it’s like having one.) She begins “Nightingale Alley” with the words “This is a song about the greatest heartbreak I have ever known,” even though it’s halfway through the album and she’s already up to double-digit GOAT heartbreaks.
Raye takes great mischievous pride in making the album much, much, much longer than it needed to be. That’s part of the charm — there’s something stubborn about how she delights in testing your patience. In her farewell “Fin,” she tops off the cinematic mood by saying “Roll credits!” then reading the album’s complete production notes for four minutes. There’s no shortage of filler, novelties, throwaways, homilies about lessons to be learned, though even bombs like “Life Boat” are clearly personal and sincere. What, you want to accuse her of being self-indulgent? She’s way ahead of you there, pal. But self-indulgence is the whole point of This Music May Contain Hope, and the album wouldn’t work at all without her flamboyant grandiosity. “Cold never lasts, my darlings,” she announces. “It just teaches the heart how to burn.” Here’s hoping Raye keeps that fire raging.
Tupac Shakur at the Club USA in New York City, New York, 1994.
Prosecutors Put Rap Lyrics on Trial. Maryland Is About to Shut It Down
“I’m Gucci. It’s a rap. F**k [can they do] about a rap?”
Those are the words of Lawrence Montague on a jail phone call, words that now sit at the center of a broader legal reckoning unfolding in Maryland over the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal proceedings.
Maryland prosecutors introduced Montague’s rap verse, recorded using a jailhouse telephone and later posted to Instagram as evidence of his guilt for the killing of George Forrester. In December 2020, Maryland’s highest Court ruled in Montague vs. Maryland that rap lyrics can be admitted in court as evidence of a defendant’s guilt. The Court’s treatment of the genre as inherently violent reflects a deeply flawed and biased assumption, and Montague was ultimately convicted and sentenced to fifty years.
On appeal, the state’s highest court affirmed Montague’s conviction, finding that Montague’s lyrics made it more probable that he shot and killed Forrester. In doing so, the Court embraced the very kind of bias the legal system is supposed to guard against.
That ruling set a dangerous precedent, particularly for rap and hip-hop artists in America, and prompted Variety to publish our January 2021 opinion piece. What we didn’t realize at the time was that the article would help spark a national movement — now a united front of influential academics, defense and civil rights attorneys, and prominent music industry advocacy organizations including Songwriters of North America, the Black Music Action Coalition, The Recording Academy, and more. Together, we’ve partnered under a coalition known as Free Our Art, led by high-profile music executive Kevin Liles and co-chaired by me and Prophet. Over the past few years, the coalition has built a diverse and bipartisan group of allies, urging lawmakers to act. This week, in a full circle moment, Maryland became only the third state to pass a bill reconsidering how creative works are used in criminal trials. The bill now heads to the desk of Maryland Governor Wes Moore, who is widely expected to sign it into law.
When signed, Maryland’s Protecting Artists’ Creative Expression (PACE) Act will join California and Louisiana, which enacted similar laws in 2022 and 2023 following advocacy by BMAC, SONA and later Free Our Art. Critically, the legislation establishes clear standards for when creative works may be admitted as evidence in criminal proceedings.
This law addresses a growing concern among the music industry, legal scholars, and civil rights advocates, as rap lyrics have almost exclusively been used against Black and Brown artists in more than 820 cases since the 1980s. The PACE Act seeks to limit bias in the courtroom, reinforcing First Amendment protections that are frequently overlooked today. When signed into law, the legislation would limit the use of artistic expression as evidence to narrowly defined legal circumstances. Any creative expressions the government is looking to present as evidence must be presented to the judge before a jury trial even begins. These include instances where a defendant clearly intended the work to be taken literally, where it contains specific factual details tied to an alleged offense, where it is directly relevant to a disputed issue, and where its probative value outweighs any unfair prejudice.
Race has long shaped how rap lyrics are interpreted in the legal system. Courts have often misunderstood the history, purpose, and cultural significance of rap music in America, which emerged in the 1970s in the South Bronx as a response to poverty, unemployment, gang violence, isolation from mainstream America, and unfair treatment by government institutions. Courts are starting to correct the problem — overturning convictions where rap lyrics were wrongly used — but that’s not justice, that’s damage control. We need real protection on the front end. That’s why the PACE Act matters.
And the momentum is building: New York, Georgia, and Missouri legislatures are in discussions to pass laws to defend artistic freedom and draw the line.
Black artistry deserves the same legal protection as any other form of creative expression. Yet past rulings, including the Montague case in Maryland, have left Black artists exposed to bias rooted in misunderstanding — and too often, a refusal to engage with the culture itself. Research shows that rap, a predominantly Black genre, is more likely to be seen by jurors as more threatening, more dangerous, and grounded in reality. The result: Black expression is treated as evidence of criminality, while white artists in other genres such as country music exploring similar themes are afforded creative freedom. In court, slang, generic references, and race can unfairly prejudice juries far beyond their actual probative value.
Artists such as Tupac Shakur, Public Enemy, N.W.A, and Kendrick Lamar have long used hip-hop to tell stories and challenge injustice. That tradition is central to the genre and should not be mistaken for confession. Black artists deserve the opportunity to express fear and anger and process trauma and lived experiences without that expression being used against them in court. That distinction is exactly what this legislation seeks to protect.
With the PACE Act now moving through the final stages of approval, Maryland has an opportunity to correct a longstanding imbalance in the legal system. If signed into law, it will set a clear standard — one that other states should follow.
Dina LaPolt is an entertainment attorney, activist, and co-founder of the Songwriters of North America; and Willie “Prophet” Stiggers is the chairman and CEO of the Black Music Action Coalition. Special thanks to Loyola Law School student Kayla Ruff.