After shining a light on her journey as an independent artist in her Billboard cover story, RAYE attended Billboard‘s Indie Power Players event in New York City on Tuesday (June 9) for a well-earned victory lap.
After accepting the Indie Spirit Award from Billboard‘s co-chief content officer Jason Lipshutz, the British singer-songwriter took the podium at The Cutting Room in Manhattan and gave a moving speech chronicling her trajectory as an artist. Touching on many of the points highlighted by her cover story in Billboard‘s Indie Power Players issue, she spoke about wanting to be a musician since she was 10 years old, signing with former label home Polydor Records and experiencing throughout her contract the frustration of dealing with “people out there — in suits, sometimes — who think that they know best, who think that they get to look you in the eyes and tell you, ‘This is your ceiling.'”
“I just want to encourage us to ignore those lies,” she continued, shouting out J Erving — who was in attendance — for believing in her music and signing her to a distribution deal with The Orchard’s Human Re Sources when every other label and company she met with thought her “music was too complicated and weird.”
