{"id":70947,"date":"2016-06-03T09:48:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-03T09:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/?p=70947"},"modified":"2016-06-03T10:12:28","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T10:12:28","slug":"ray-blk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/2016\/06\/03\/ray-blk\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray BLK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">The Outer London Dickens-obsessed singer proving to be one\u00a0of 2016\u2019s most unusual success stories.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>Taken from the Summer Issue of Wonderland<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"\/\/media.wonderlandmagazine.com\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Screen-Shot-2016-06-03-at-10.33.39.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-70951\" src=\"\/\/media.wonderlandmagazine.com\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Screen-Shot-2016-06-03-at-10.33.39.jpg\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2016-06-03 at 10.33.39\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Top by TRIPLE FIVE SOUL ARCHIVE, trousers WHISTLES ARCHIVE, earrings and rings STYLIST\u2019S OWN and shoes GUCCI ARCHIVE<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cI feel like my music is a representation of the person that I am.\u201d Straighttalking\u00a0Catford girl Ray BLK knows who she is and she doesn\u2019t shy\u00a0away from it, but then why would she? A cross between Lauryn Hill\u00a0and her teenage idol, P!nk, Ray BLK\u2019s debut EP \u201c<em>Havisham<\/em>\u201d dropped\u00a0last year, earning her coverage across the far corners of the internet.\u00a0Now, with a second EP well under way, I catch five minutes with BLK\u00a0on the set of her shoot for <em>Wonderland<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Despite the hype, Ray BLK is still coming to terms with strangers\u00a0calling her name on the street. \u201cIt\u2019s the weirdest feeling,\u201d she tells me.\u00a0\u201cHow did you find me? How did you find the music? Even though it\u2019s\u00a0on a small scale, it\u2019s amazing to see people connecting with it.\u201d Amazing\u00a0perhaps, but unsurprising, to anyone other than BLK anyway. Flicking\u00a0a well-manicured middle finger up against the rules and providing a\u00a0platform encouraging self-confidence, her lyrics resonate deeply with\u00a0issues that we can all relate to. In \u201c<em>5050<\/em>\u201d, she asks her non-committal\u00a0drug-dealer boyfriend: \u201cNow are you really ready?\/Or are you wasting\u00a0my time?\/\u2018Cause if you ain\u2019t try\u2019na wife me\/You need to get off my\u00a0line\u201d. \u201cI\u2019ve been outspoken my whole life,\u201d she tells me. \u201cWhich I don\u2019t\u00a0think is something that is celebrated in woman. For listeners, the thing\u00a0I always try to project is being true to yourself. If you are an outspoken\u00a0woman, then be that, be proud of that, be yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Before we discuss what she\u2019s been up in the studio, we take a\u00a0minute to talk about the brilliantly-named \u201c<em>Havisham<\/em>\u201d, written in the\u00a0mists of her final year of studying. The album was inspired by Charles\u00a0Dickens\u2019 Miss Havisham from the iconic novel <em>Great Expectations<\/em>.\u00a0After being jilted at the alter, Miss Havisham vows to never fall in\u00a0love again and to mistreat men as revenge. On Ray BLK\u2019s record,\u00a0a girl falls in love before being heartbroken and turning against\u00a0love altogether.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cThe music I write is either my experience or the experience\u00a0of the people around me. I don\u2019t think my Nigerian background\u00a0contributes to my sound, but it might do to my content. My house\u00a0is very much like Nigeria. England might be outside, but being raised\u00a0at home, on Nigerian morals and beliefs, it has definitely contributed\u00a0to my perception and interpretation of things.\u201d She tells me that she\u2019s\u00a0hardly been out of the studio this year, and reminisces about the days\u00a0where she wrote tracks in her bedroom. \u201cWhen I started, I was just\u00a0writing it in my bedroom in the same spot, which is on my bed in the\u00a0corner next to my computer.\u201d Can we expect a slicker sound from the\u00a0second, studio-written EP? \u201cI would say it takes a different direction,\u00a0but in my opinion it\u2019s a better, more polished version of me, or\u00a0of the first EP. It\u2019s stronger, it\u2019s got a stronger sound. With my first EP,\u00a0I literally just did it by myself, I wrote beats, a few tunes, and then\u00a0found somewhere to record and I just did it like that, whereas now\u00a0I\u2019m working with producers. So it\u2019s a lot easier and it\u2019s sounding\u00a0better as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Photography<\/strong>:Rosie Matheson<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Fashion<\/strong>: Savannah Baker<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Words<\/strong>:\u00a0Jade Mordente<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Hair<\/strong>: Naomi Richardson<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Makeup<\/strong>: Michaela Selway using SLEEK COSMETICS<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Special thanks to WEST CENTRAL STUDIOS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Outer London Dickens-obsessed singer proving to be one\u00a0of 2016\u2019s most unusual success stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":70949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8949,8950,8951],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ 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