BLACK RAINBOWS

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BAILEY RAE: (Singing) New York transit queen. New York transit queen. New York transit queen. Little over 17. About a decade ago, an old bank on the South Side of Chicago was at risk of being demolished, but artist Theaster Gates decided to save it.

RASCOE: And what she saw transformed her. She saw objects that represent problematic aspects of culture, too.In celebration of the new project, Bailey Rae is performing select shows across the US this autumn, with a number of shows in Spain and three very special performances in London’s Ladbroke Hall at the end of October. BAILEY RAE: I mean, I love the work that I've already made. And thankfully, when you make new work, it doesn't wipe out the old work, right? So the old work is all still there. You know, I've played those songs all around the world since 2005, and I love them. You know, I love playing "Put Your Records On," "Like A Star" and "Green Aphrodisiac" and "Breathless." And - but I am thrilled right now to be on tour playing this new music and telling these stories. RASCOE: Gates invited her to perform her music in the arts bank, but she said her earlier music didn't feel like the right thing to sing, so she started writing new music. BAILEY RAE: It was a sculpture that I saw standing on, I think, the third floor. I could see all these different layers of paint, but it looked like somehow, they'd been pulled off or stretched off or scraped off. And it had these windows in it. It reminded me of these adobe temples, you know, Malian adobe temples. It's made from the floorboards of an abandoned police station in Chicago. For me, straight away, I thought about objects and what they are witness to. There are incidents that happen where the human witnesses either have passed away, or they have a particular agenda where perhaps the truth that they communicate isn't the whole story. I thought, who was walked on these floors? What have these floors seen? And so I felt in this - I was writing this poem, and it was called "You Who Have Walked These Floors In Fear." And I thought about the narrative around Sandra Bland's death.

BAILEY RAE: (Singing) Before the throne, before the throne of the invisible god, of the invisible god. She has, though, long been a more complex artist than her breakout hit suggested. Put Your Records On might be mild-mannered, but it is about female fortitude. It makes mention of loving an “afro hairdo”. Before going solo, Bailey Rae had been in an all-female guitar band, Helen. A four-to-the-floor beat transforms this genteel hall into a mini jazz rave, with solos from many of the players Guitar fury’: Corinne Bailey Rae and band at Ladbroke Hall, London. Photographs: Sophia Evans/the Observer I knew when I walked through those doors that my life had changed forever,” says Bailey Rae. “Engaging with these archives and encountering Theaster Gates and his practice has changed how I think about myself as an artist and what the possibilities of my work can be. This music has come through seeing. Seeing has been like hearing, for me. While I was looking, songs/sounds appeared.”In similar excellence, Koto Bolofo was awarded the 2022 Lucie Award for Achievement in Advertising in Photography, with his editorials featured in Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ and many others. RASCOE: And that sound sonically is very different from your earlier work. Are you worried at all because it is different from what you've done in the past? Or are you at peace with what you have put out? I wrote this song, and it came out with fire. It came out with rage. And I was talking to a friend saying, this is such a difficult song. And they said to me, yes, but the chorus says, they tried to erase you. They tried to eviscerate you, hide behind the curtain, make you forget your name. They tried to. So although it's a reflection on the erasure, it's also recognition that this was an unsuccessful attempt. The first single, ‘New York Transit Queen’, which The Observer have described as “an exciting post-punk glam thrash… like Santigold dismantling Blur’s Song 2” is out now.

RASCOE: There's a fun moment on the album that comes on the song "New York Transit Queen." It seems like you really like New York because you have that song "Paris Nights/New York Mornings" from your album "The Sea." But who is the New York transit queen? British singer/songwriter/musician Corinne Bailey Rae shot to stardom with her self-titled #1 U.K. debut album in 2006, featuring the global hits ‘Put Your Records On’ and ‘Like A Star’. Over the course of her career she has released three critically acclaimed studio albums—Corinne Bailey Rae, The Sea and The Heart Speaks in Whispers—and earned two Grammy Awards, two MOBOS, and been nominated for multiple awards including the BRIT Awards, Mercury Music Prize and BET Awards. The gear shifts can be jarring, but album four is actually more cohesive than it has any right to be, a fact its creator has attributed to her common thread of influence in Stony Island Arts Bank. Horns up: Corinne Bailey Rae has thrown the musical curveball of the year. DetailsBAILEY RAE: (Singing) We gave ourselves into the night. And we counted time a painted illusion. And my heart was an empty box.

I knew when I walked through those doors that my life had changed forever,” says the musician. “Engaging with these archives and encountering Theaster Gates and his practice has changed how I think about myself as an artist and what the possibilities of my work can be. This music has come through seeing. Seeing has been like hearing, for me. While I was looking, songs/sounds appeared.”

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