Raye has performed her unreleased composition ‘Genesis’ at a special pop-up exhibition in New York City. Watch the full performance below.
READ MORE: RAYE: “I became a ‘rent-a-verse’. People knew my songs, but they didn’t know me”
The six-time BRIT award-winning artist took to her official Instagram on Sunday (June 2) that she would be hosting The ‘Genesis’ Exhibition for her fans in New York City to watch her perform her unreleased track by the same name.
The event took place at the Conrad New York Hotel Downtown last night (June 3) and saw the ‘Escapism.’ singer sung her new musical piece four times during four different sessions from 7pm until 8:30pm. The intimate performance consisted of her band standing in a circle in a small room and her singing in the middle on a platform.
A handful of fans were allowed entry with wristbands and witnessed Raye play the full seven-minute-long song. “Good evening, welcome to the ‘Genesis’ Exhibition, which is basically a fancy way to say we are going to sing you a song from ‘Genesis’,” Raye said before jumping into the piece.
@itsanagricel @Raye ♬ original sound – Ana
.@RAYE in NYC singing a soul-stirring rendition of her 3-part, 7 min opus #GENESIS dropping FRIDAY. The body-of-work is centered around the message “out of darkness there is light” & concludes w/ a must hear big-band finale for the ages!https://t.co/fuFTklp6Y3#GENESIS pic.twitter.com/v4xYP2uKQs
— Michael Tomczak (@mmtomczak) June 4, 2024
She continued: “This is a seven-minute piece of music that I’m so proud of and I worked so hard on. We are going to sing it for you now. This might be the shortest concert of your life.”
Raye has been teasing the composition – which is set for release this Friday (June 7) on her social media. She also played a snippet of it during her medley at the 2024 BRITs earlier this year.
She shared a photo of a limited edition 7″ pressing of ‘Genesis’ with the caption reading: “It kind of hurts a bit to call this piece of music a ‘single’ because it is so much more than just a song to me. This song is a 7 minute labour of love I have been working on since 2022, I have chipped away at, scrutinised, replaced, redone, passionately sculpted this song to become what you will hear in 7 days.”
She continued: “There is a Nina Simone quote which is everything to me, ‘it is an artists duty to reflect the times’ and the best way I believe I can try to do this is through my art, and I have tried my utmost to do so inside this song. Inside my dear ‘Genesis’.”
The piece is broken up into three parts, all with different styles and tempos and sees Raye sing about the struggles of online personalities and expectations as well as battling depression.
In other news, Raye, who has spoken out numerous times for songwriter rights, recently won the Ivor Novello award for Songwriter of the Year just one year after the release of her long-awaited debut album ‘My 21st Century Blues‘.
In a four-star review of her LP, NME shared: “Raye recently said that such bold and brave declarations wouldn’t have been released had she still been signed to a major label. Granted her creative independence, though, the hard-fought ‘My 21st Century Blues’ is unequivocally Raye from start to finish.
The post Watch Raye perform unreleased composition ‘Genesis’ at NYC pop-up appeared first on NME.
