My Hood ft. Stormzy
This Stormzy-featuring ode to South London touches on the bleak realities of both artists’ hometowns, but ultimately finds pride in the quirks and oddities surrounding them. The track is bittersweet, especially as it was written after her house was broken into by her neighbours, but Ray says she owes her killer work-ethic and fighting spirit to her working-class upbringing in Catford: “The south east is one of the roughest places in London but it rears the strongest people, and that’s what makes us special.”
Chill Out ft SG Lewis
‘Chill Out’ was the first track lifted from Ray’s 2016 debut EP ‘Durt’. Ray told Hunger last year “I feel like women are told how to live and act based on societal pressures which stems from male privilege and this song challenges that.” The video was filmed in Kingston, Jamaica with the Gully Queens, an LGBT community living on society’s margins. The song has a strong message of empowerment- a central theme in Ray’s music and brand: her surname ‘BLK’ stands for Building Living Knowing.
Havisham
Technically ‘Havisham’ is an EP, not a track, but it’s almost impossible to pick one defining song from her critically acclaimed EP. This first project from Ray takes inspiration from Charles Dickens’ popular novel Great Expectations and is named after the cold hearted character Miss Havisham. BLK wrote and recorded the ‘Havisham’ whilst finishing a degree in English Literature. “What I loved most about English was probably just the story telling to be honest. The novels we would read taught me how to tell stories,” said the singer-songwriter.
