Raye is the winner of the 2026 Mercury prize , for her second studio album, This Music May Contain Hope.

Her win – for a hugely ambitious 73-minute record that spanned big band jazz, power balladry, funk and more – caps an ongoing renaissance for a British singer who at one point was in the doldrums, lashing out publicly at her record label for not letting her release a studio album.

Since that low in 2021, she split from that former label and found huge success with two albums: My 21st Century Blues, which won her six Brit awards – still the record for a single Brits ceremony – and This Music May Contain Hope, which topped the UK charts and contains the global hit Where Is My Husband!

Raye and fellow Mercury competitor Olivia Dean, whose album The Art of Loving has spent 55 weeks in the UK Top 10 Photograph: JMEnternational/Getty Images

The judging panel said: “Raye displays real imagination and scope in showing what an album can be, going beyond any one style or genre to realise her vision.…