Victor Ray - präsentiert von Rausgegangen

In the organizer's words:

Presented by 95.5 charivari and Rausgegangen Munich

"I feel like a creative in its most original form."
Born in Uganda, raised in Newcastle and now living in London, 24-year-old Victor Ray began his career as a musician the hard way: as a street musician. An often thankless task that can be crucial to an artist's resilience and character - in Victor's case it was the former. It was a baptism of fire, so to speak, as he sang his heart out on the cold streets of the North East, learning how to win over and inspire even the frostiest of audiences.
It also gave Victor the opportunity to strengthen his vocal chords - an important prerequisite for making himself heard in the constant noise of the city streets. "I feel like I have something to say and something to prove, so I just do everything I can to show people that I'm telling real stories with my lyrics. That's very close to my heart."
All of these tools, combined with a knack for making a big impression quickly (which he's also acquired while performing on the road), have proven incredibly effective in gaining an audience on social media, where he now has a staggering 4 million followers and over a billion views. Victor comes from a working class background and was raised by a single immigrant mother. For a long time, he felt he had something to prove to the world.

Today, he feels he's over it, having earned his laurels (and his fans) the hard way. But, he says, he still has something to prove: "When I first started performing, I put on this face: 'No, I'm an artist now and anyone who talks to me will know that. I started every conversation with that and tried to convince myself, but then people started supporting me and now everyone is starting to stick up for me and it's like: Okay, I've convinced everyone of this thing, and now it's like I have to prove it to myself."
Musically, Victor has embraced the singer-songwriter tradition that has always been ingrained in Newcastle's live music scene, alongside the two main and most obvious influences of R&B and pop (with a hint of hip-hop in his delivery). Beyond that, his tastes are eclectic to say the least (Abba's "Dancing Queen" is a "great riddim," he says). He also cites a lot of music from Kenya and Uganda as influential, but also Donnie Hathaway, J. Cole and Usher. In fact, it was Usher, whose last name is Raymond, who partly inspired Victor's stage name. All of these strands end up coming together perfectly, and rather than calling it some kind of R&B or hip-hop influence, he'd rather just think of it as "pop music".

He'd also like to add Ed Sheeran to that list because, he says, "I've always seen him playing guitar and performing, and it always shook me that he could play these huge rooms with just the guitar. I was like, 'Rah! Okay.' That's probably why I started to love the guitar even more, because I didn't think you could get that far with it." After cutting his teeth performing on the road, Victor focused more on recording music this year. He released his first EP, I Was, in February 2023, followed by a second, I Felt, in September. But, he promises, he has much, much more music up his sleeve. "It's funny, because I've written hundreds of songs, but obviously there's only about eight that are out in the world right now."

That small handful of songs is nothing to sneeze at either. Victor Ray is on the cusp of something big and it's palpable. His next single, "Comfortable", quickly went viral after he posted a clip on Instagram. Within a week, the number of his followers increased by 250,000. Victor Ray is determined to make the most of this momentum and is embarking on a quickly sold-out European tour in the first half of 2024 (two sold-out European tours, mind you). Although he lands in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Paris and LA, he hasn't forgotten the UK. There are a few dates in London on the schedule, although tickets are likely to sell out sooner rather than later.