The award recognises the best album by an artist from the UK or Ireland and comes with a £25,000 prize. Accepting the trophy from broadcaster Sian Eleri, she said: "I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be holding this. I'm shaking, I'm jet-lagged, I'm tired, I'm grateful!"

The result is a genuine upset in genre terms. As The Independent notes, the Mercury Prize has typically favoured rock, indie, hip-hop or electronic music, and RAYE's triumph marks a rare win for a pop album — albeit one loaded with jazz, soul and R&B influences and a Hans Zimmer collaboration.

She beat a heavyweight field: Olivia Dean, rapper Dave, JADE, Florence and the Machine, Suede, and Sir Paul McCartney, who was shortlisted for the first time in his career at 84, for *The Boys of Dungeon Lane*.

The winning moment was matched by a show-stopping live turn: Stereogum reports RAYE performed the jazzy "I Hate The Way I Look Today" from her winning album, while Music Week says she received the trophy from Sian Eleri and sang the same track to a standing ovation.

She was one of ten shortlisted acts to perform on the night, alongside Dove Ellis, Florence + The Machine, JADE, Knats, Kojey Radical, Nia Archives, Olivia Dean, Suede and Pulp; only Dave and McCartney did not perform, appearing instead via short films.

For a singing audience, the clip is the night's essential viewing — a vocal showcase from the artist the judges crowned.

The judging panel, chaired by Jeff Smith with members including Jamie Cullum, Mistajam, Afrodeutsche and Will Hodgkinson, praised the album's "scale, structure, ambition and sheer charm," saying RAYE "displays real imagination and scope in showing what an album can be, going beyond any one style or genre to realise her vision."

The Guardian describes the record as a hugely ambitious 73-minute, 17-track epic spanning big-band jazz, power balladry and funk, loosely structured around the four seasons, containing the global hit "Where Is My Husband!" — a UK No. 1 that reached No. 6 in the US.

The win caps a remarkable reversal.

The Guardian recounts that RAYE, born Rachel Keen, was once publicly lashing out at her former record label for refusing to let her release an album; she then released her debut independently, won a record six Brit Awards in a single ceremony and topped the UK charts.

The celebration continues almost immediately.

The Independent reports RAYE headlines a one-off show at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Friday 23 October, titled *This Symphony May Contain Hope*, in which she will play her second album in full, reimagining each song with the Heritage Orchestra and Flames Collective — a big-band-styled encore well suited to a vocal-first readership.

Music Week notes the Mercury win can be expected to boost the album's chart consumption further, and Stereogum adds that RAYE is also set to make her acting debut in Yann Demange's thriller *Lineage*.