Barefoot Raye fights back tears at the BRITS after record-breaking 7 nominations

Raye won the first BRIT Award on Saturday night during a star-studded ceremony at London's O2 arena.

The singer/songwriter scooped the Song of the year award for her hit Escapism ft 070 Shake, shortly before also taking home the R&B Act gong and Best New Artist.

'I'm shaking. i don't really know what to say right now, but... thank you. I've always dreamed of saying that,' she said as the reached the podium to accept her first award of the night.

Accepting Best New Artist just minutes afterwards, the emotional star told the crowd: 'What is actually happening right now ‘cause I just don’t understand!'

Raye's recent success comes after she parted ways with her former label, Polydor, and released her critically acclaimed debut My 21st Century Blues as an independent artist. She referenced her new beginning in her Best New Artist Speech. 

'I have to thank my mum and my dad who are also part of my team, and my grandma. Yes grandma! I, in ways, do feel like a new artist. I released my first song when I was 15, my first mixtape when I was 16, don’t go and listen to it because it’s not that good any more.'

'But I do feel like a new artist, I got to start again. The artist I was three years ago would not believe what she’s seeing today. I’m my own boss now, I’m in control. Thank you!'

She also scooped the first ever BRIT Award for R&B act, which is voted for by the public via Instagram and is a new standalone genre category after musicians and fans complained about R&B being conjoined with the pop  last year.

Raye acknowledged the the uproar in her speech, telling the crowd: 'Look I just wanna say, when I was about 16, 15 years old, I wanted to be an R&B artist, that’s what I would say. And I was told, I think, a lie that R&B doesn’t sell in the UK so I needed to learn how to make different kinds of music.'

'I know that’s a bit shady but I need to say R&B is so important and there are so many R&B artists in the UK eating it up. I wanna shout out to Mahalia, who campaigned for this award, Cleo Sol, who’s immaculate, Sault. This really is a lot – thank you.'

Raye also won Songwriter of the Year, which was announced ahead of the live ceremony, with host Clara Amfo handing her the gong in a surprise moment after her Best New Artist win. 

Radio 1 DJ Clara told the crowd how she gave Raye her first radio play back when she was a teenager. 'Brit awards coming like buses, you wait for one and three come along!' she gushed of her friend as a speechless Raye clutched her gongs.

The artist then gave an impassioned plea to the music industry, taking the mic to declare: 'Whilst I’m here, British record music industry please, I just wanna have a brief conversation about normalising giving songwriters master royalty points. It can be net costs, it doesn’t have to be at your expense, but it means if songs win big the writers win big too. Please allow that to happen.'

The 26-year-old has been shortlisted in seven categories - the most by any artist in one year- including two separate nods in the Song of the Year category for 'Prada' and 'Escapism'.

The 'Worth It' hitmaker is also up for RnB Act, Best New Artist, Hip Hop/Grime/Rap Act, Artist of the Year and Album of the Year for her acclaimed record 'My 21st Century Blues'.

Speaking on the red carpet before the ceremony at London's O2 on Saturday, Raye admitted she was struggling to take it all in.

She told red carpet hosts Layton Williams and DJ Harriet Rose: 'It's a joke. I was trying and hustling for years. It's too much. My main thing tonight is that I have to enjoy it. Otherwise what is the point.

'It's really hard to process things in real time.'

A record 98 artists are up for the new 2024 BRIT award, which has been designed by British visual artist and painter Rachel Jones.

The non-gendered Artist Of The Year Award sparked outrage last year, after it replaced individual Male and Female categories, but then failed to include any female or non-binary artists among its five nominations.

This year however, thanks in part to the category being doubled in size, there are six female nominees out of the 10, including Raye.

Arlo Parks, Jessie Ware, Lil Simz, Olivia Sims and Dua Lipa make up the female nominees, while Central Cee, Dave, J. Hus and Fred Again... are also nominated.

The second gong of the night went to Jungle for Group of the Year.  

Meanwhile Bring Me The Horizon got another early win for  for Alternative/Rock Act while Sza won International Artist of the Year.

It is the first BRIT for Bring Me The Horizon, who were left shocked by the win. 

Oli Sykes told the crowd: 'I don’t know what to say ‘cause we didn’t think we’d be winning this at all. Cheers to the Brits for making the voting system so complicated only our fans could be arsed.'