Raye has been announced as the winner of the Mercury Prize 2026, sharing that she believes “music is medicine”.
This year’s edition of the annual awards show took place at the Utilita Arena in Newcastle tonight (Thursday October 22), hosted by BBC Radio 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne.
Taking home the coveted statue for ‘This Music May Contain Hope’, which NME gave a five-star review and hailed as “show-stopping musical maximalism at its grandest”, beating off competition from other shortlisted records by Paul McCartney, JADE, Nia Archives, Dave, Suede, Florence + The Machine, Olivia Dean, Knats, RAYE, Dove Ellis, and Kojey Radical, along with the War Child ‘Help(2)’ compilation album.
“First of all, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be holding this,” she said from the stage after collecting the prize. “I’m shaking, I’m jetlagged, I’m tired, I’m grateful, it’s all blurry.”
“I’ve always banged on about how much I believe in albums,” she continued. “Albums are so important. And not to be bitter, because I feel like I’m mostly at peace with my past, you know?” – she said, referring to her previous record label battles – “but to come from a place where it’s all about singles and chasing the next thing, I just feel so grateful to be recognised.”
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Speaking of the lush orchestration and jazzy compositions on the record, she said: “I just wanted to make seven-minute songs. I wanted to go to a big band section there and do strings there, and just be really indulgent and I’m just so grateful.”
Raye added: “The tears are going to flow now, so I’m just going to say ‘This Music May Contain Hope’. ‘Hope’ is a very cheesy word, especially for us British. We don’t do that kind of deep stuff like that, but hope is just something that we all need. Music is that, music is medicine. I just hope that message comes across to anyone who needs it and thank you so much for this prize.”
The evening also saw Raye perform an arena-busting rendition of ‘I Hate The Way I Look Today’ during the ceremony, and again as a closer after she picked up her prize.
‘This Music May Contain Hope’ hit Number for Raye, and led to her headlining Reading & Leeds festival 2026 ahead of her playing the album in full with an orchestra at London’s Royal Albert Hall tomorrow night.
Tonight’s winner was selected by a judging panel made up of music writer and broadcaster Sophie Williams, The Times‘ rock and pop critic Will Hodgkinson, composer, DJ and radio broadcaster AFRODEUTSCHE, and broadcaster and musician Danielle Perry.
Alongside them was be Radio 2’s Jamie Cullum, Jeff Smith, Lea Stonhill, MistaJam, Kerrang‘s creative director Phil Alexander, and Sian Eleri, with Jeff Smith serving as Chair of the judging team.
Performing at tonight’s event were Dove Ellis, Florence + The Machine, JADE, Knats, Kojey Radical, Nia Archives, Olivia Dean, RAYE and Suede. Pulp also took to the stage to represent the James Ford-helmed ‘Help(2)’.
Raye follows in the footsteps of Sam Fender, who won last year’s Mercury Prize with his third album ‘People Watching’. Other past recipients include English Teacher, Ezra Collective, Little Simz, Dave, Arlo Parks, Wolf Alice and Young Fathers. Also among notable past winners are Arctic Monkeys, Elbow, Pulp, Portishead, PJ Harvey and Franz Ferdinand.
A series of Fringe events has been taking place across Newcastle this week in the run-up to the Mercury Prize. The main ceremony was first held in the city last year, marking the first time it’d moved outside London.
