Raye was signed to Polydor Records as a teenager, she wrote songs for Beyoncé and Little Mix, sang on top 10 hits by David Guetta and Jax Jones, but her label refused to release her debut album. After she extricated herself from Polydor and struck out as an independent artist, she had the biggest-selling single in the UK within 18 months - 'Escapism', a hard-hitting account of abusing drink, drugs and meaningless sex to get over a break-up. Her long-awaited debut album, '21st Century Blues', is out this Friday, with hard-hitting stories of sexual abuse, self-doubt, misogyny...

Pop singer-songwriter Raye spoke about her label travails in a series of emotional posts on Twitter. “I have been on a 4 ALBUM RECORD DEAL since 2014 !!! And haven’t been allowed to put out one album" - Raye wrote. Clash Music came to the conclusion that there’s only a small number of boxes in which the industry is willing to place them – if an artist doesn’t fit easily into those boxes, then there’s an issue.