RAYE Dazzles New York’s Radio City Music Hall With This Tour May Contain New Music: 7 Best Moments
The Grammy-nominated pop sensation is putting on one of the most impressive shows of the year.
Black News 
Few people are having a better 2026 than RAYE. Just two months after receiving the Harry Belafonte Best Song for Social Change Grammy Award for her harrowing 2023 testimonial, “Ice Cream Man,” the London pop sensation unveiled her transcendent This Music May Contain Hope sophomore LP, earning. both her first U.K. No. 1 album and a career best peak on the Billboard 200 (No. 11). And that’s not to mention the global success of her big band jazz-indebted “Where Is My Husband” single, or her upcoming stint as a supporting act on Bruno Mars’ stadium-packing Romantic Tour.
On Wednesday night, the artist born Rachel Keen played her first of two sold-out shows at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on her This Tour May Contain New Music trek. The history of venues as iconic as Radio City can feel overwhelming, but RAYE made it a point to honor the legends who have graced the stage before her — and that grace and humility powered what was arguably the most outstanding pop show of 2026 so far.
From campy set changes to cheeky onstage banter, RAYE understands that the only way to bring an album as deliciously technicolor as This Music May Contain Hope to life is by leaning into theater. She opens the show with a mix of “Intro: Girl Under the Grey Cloud” and “I Will Overcome,” draped in a fur underneath a singular prop storm cloud, immediately preparing the audience for a vaudevillian show never lacking in intimacy or intensity. Before that, however, she ceded the stage to her two younger sisters: London-based singer-songwriter Amma and enigmatic “experimental pop” artist Absolutely.
Amma took the stage first, performing standout cuts like “If You Don’t Love Me” and “Man Oh Man,” both of which appear on her debut album, Middle Child, which dropped the same night (April 15). Absolutely, who recently caught up with Billboard about her recently released Paracosm LP, followed with a whimsical set that included performances of her viral hit “I Just Don’t Know You Yet” and a stunning cover of ABBA’s “I Have a Dream.” Both sisters would return to help RAYE close the show with This Music May Contain Hope highlight “Joy,” but not before the 28-year-old powerhouse diligently led fans through an emotional odyssey, making stops at a jazz club, rave, church service, and orchestra performance along the way.
Flanked by top-notch musicians that matched her tongue-in-cheek whimsy and production that reimagined the function of the theater through the medicinal power of music, RAYE’s robust voice filled every crevice of Radio City Music Hall during her two-and-a-half-hour set. If anything shone brighter than RAYE’s dazzling voice and smile, it was her gut-wrenching honesty and commitment to the promise of hope — no matter how “cringe” that allegiance may feel to those who cannot truly parse through their emotions. This tour didn’t just contain new music; it created a space for like-minded listeners to share their testimonies, whether through words, dancing or repeating the resounding declaration that anchors “Life Boat”: “I’m not giving up.”
Here are the seven best moments of RAYE’s This Tour May Contain New Music.
