On the Monday night of Ray BLK’s Empress project release week, we worked with YouTube to take over the YouTube Space London and celebrate with a mix of over 100 of Ray’s family, friends, super fans, radio, press and brand contacts, bloggers and influencers.
Also invited were some of the young people Ray has worked with throughout the campaign on her shoots and schools tours, as well as some others from the likes of Stephen Lawrence Trust and Island Co.Lab who were given special insight in to curating the event for their experience.
Covering issues surrounding gun and knife violence, reinforcing self-worth, relationships with friends and family and more, Empress has a message for everyone and we wanted to bring this to life on the night with an experience of art, music and conversation.
On the days running up to the event, we asked fans to tag a friend in Ray’s social posts who they thought was an Empress or Emperor and why. Island Co.Lab members then used the words to create live Empress- inspired art on a 7x7ft canvas. Ray also posted an Instagram Story question sticker asking fans for questions, and favourites were chosen to be part of a Q&A on the night, allowing more fans to be a part of the celebration.
Joining Ray on the stage was Yasmin Evans who asked Ray the chosen questions, which lead into a premier of Ray’s new video for Empress track ‘Mama’, released that day. After a short break, when a selection of savoury and sweet snacks were served, as well as Empress-inspired cocktails, Ray then performed five tracks. This included a first time very special performance of ‘Paradise’, a track which was inspired by the passing of one of Ray’s friends, which naturally evoked a raw, emotional, teary reaction from Ray.
Ronie Bond blog took over the Island Records Instagram Stories for the evening, providing an insight to the evening for more Ray BLK fans.
During the day, Ray also spoke to 20 students from the Stephen Lawrence Trust who were in the Space to learn about creating content to amplify messages they are passionate about.
The result was a really exciting evening with a tone which genuinely aligned with everything Ray stands for.
A review from NME explained: “At YouTube’s swish north London studio, an event for family and fans – a celebration
of all that ‘Empress’ represents. She performed four songs and took questions from the audience, while visuals artists doodled on enormous sketchpads around the venue. The atmosphere was distinctly wholesome, feel-good, supportive.”
Creating a moment around project release, the event gave Ray’s her peers and contacts an opportunity to spread the word and we saw a social media reach of over 4m from YouTube on the ‘Mama’ video release to 230k Twitter followers. Further support on videos from the evening from YouTube is also being confirmed.
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