Raye finds "toxic" people "addictive"

Speaking on the Orange Main Stage stage at Open'er Festival in Poland on Wednesday night (02.07.25) as she introduced her song Mary Jane, she said: "I believe addictions are part of the human experience.

"You can be addicted to a lot of things in life. You, you could be addicted to exercise - which is not me, but I'm very happy for those of you who decided to be addicted to exercise.

"You could be addicted to chocolate, cheese.

"Or you could be addicted to a human being. I find the toxic people to just be so addictive. You know, when you just can't tell that person 'No'.

"And then you have illegal addictions, no judgement, this is a safe space and for me, too.

"But I think, it's deemed unattractive as a woman to talk about this kind of addiction."

Raye famously had a turbulent start to her career, leaving her record label Polydor after the company allegedly refused to release her debut album for several years, but she relishes being an "independent artist" now, making the music she always wanted to.

Raye - who made history at the 2024 BRIT Awards, winning in six accolades, including British Artist of the Year - told the crowd: "I'm an independent artist. "Now, I was telling my driver actually on the way up. I was giving it my whole backstory, come on, and I was telling him I was an independent artist, and he asked if I like being independent and I was like, yes I do.

"I had a bit of a tough time early on in my career as a record label for seven years. And during that time, I was releasing a lot of music but it was fast, fast pop, like music created to sell.

And that's not the reason I wanted to be a singer. It's not the reason I wanted to be a musician in a songwriter, I think art is about honesty."

Other artists who performed on the first day of Open'er Festival included Jorja Smith, Schoolboy Q and the night's headliners, Massive Attack.

Performers in the coming days include Nine Inch Nails, Muse, Wolf Alice and Linkin Park.