Two new episodes out TODAY featuring RAYE and Jordan Stephens with highlights available on YouTube

The BRIT Awards 2023 with Mastercard today launch two new episodes of The Red Carpet Treatment, featuring singer songwriter RAYE and singer/rapper/actor Jordan Stephens.

The series is hosted by one of the UK's most important YouTube creators and influencers, Nella Rose, and is recorded in a specially made Red Carpet studio.  In each episode pop stars walk and talk about their journey to one of the most iconic fashion and celebrity moments of the year - The BRIT Awards Red Carpet. Nella will discuss with her guests their personal journeys to pop stardom;  the songs, the friendships, the clothes and the emotions as they arrive at The O2 Arena for one of the most important milestones in their career. 

This brand new podcast launched earlier this month with episodes from Ella Henderson, Ms Banks, Joel Corry and Gracey; later episodes will feature A1 x J1 and Gabrielle.

Check out the new episodes HERE, available across podcast platforms, with video episodes available on The BRITs' YouTube channel.

RAYE EPISODE 5
Raye talks to Nella about being an independent artist, roller coasters, turning 25, co-writing and singing backing vocals on a Beyoncé track, being embraced by the LGBTQiA+ community and more

About co-writing a song for Beyoncé...
"Do you know what's actually mad about this story? And I'll tell you. Guilty (Beatz) and I had had a tough year these times. Yeah, we're sitting in this makeshift studio in this apartment. And I'm like, "Guilty listen, we need to pray for something big for us this year and I and we prophesied it was mad. We're like, "we're going to write a song for either someone big, someone impactful, Beyoncé.  I actually said her name in the prayer. Nuts. We made them two songs after we did that prayer. And then based on those songs, they reached out to Guilty and then asked me to get involved in writing some songs for the project, which is just mad in it."

"And honestly that she kept my BV's in the song, my background vocals, you know, obviously there's like not loads I can say but she actually believed in my abilities in a time that I was really doubting myself, I was really hard on myself and it was the pick me up I needed you know, one of my proudest achievements."

On becoming an independent artist...
"I'm now fully in control of my career entirely...there's no rules. So I think in the past that I was definitely, in the worst of times, really stuck in the system. And I guess, you know, I fulfilled a certain role, because I was good at writing dance music and big sounding songs that, you know, that became a big part of me. I love dance music, but I also like, I love R&B, and I love pop. I love ballads,  I love jazz; I'm a jazz head through and through. So now I am allowed to do whatever I want and redefine what my goals are, it's one thing to make a song with the purpose to sell, and as a songwriter, sometimes that's what you need to do. You know, that's what people want. That's what I needed to provide at the time. But then there's making songs for the purpose, to share your art, be honest, be visceral, it doesn't matter about anything other than the integrity of what you're creating. And that's how this new music feels to me. So yeah, that's what matters to me right now."

JORDAN STEPHENS EPISODE 6
Jordan talks to Nella about Rizzle Kicks success, his own music, his style icons, appearing in Rogue One, collaborating with Olly Murs, doing a TED talk, acting in drag and more...

On his solo album Let Me Die Inside You...
"I was just making a bunch of songs and the songs were good and then I thought, well, I should probably put them out because it would be a shame so, I've done that before, I've made albums then never released them. I've got two albums I've never released...for various reasons I just went through stuff in my life around that time, and they never got out and I over-thought it and whatever else."

"... also it's like a bit of a lairy name and people will remember it and the topic matter in the album you can't really forget, I'm talking about sex and death. I mean, that's just maybe that's what I'll talk about forever."

On wearing Egyptian cotton to the BRITs in 2012...

Nella: "You are wearing a burgundy hoodie, a mustard loose t-shirt, crinkled un-ironed jeans and grey vans with brown laces."

Jordan: "I was at the BRIT Awards. We were nominated that year."

Nella: "Jordan! You were nominated and you wore this?"

Jordan: "This t-shirt I was wearing in my mind was balling. Right, because this t-shirt was Egyptian cotton...It was £55 and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I mean, listen, I wouldn't say I'd had my style awakening at this point. We had an opportunity to not dress like this but we chose to."

On Dennis Rodman as style icon...

"I like he's got like, all the facial jewellery? I feel like he wakes up and he just wears whatever he wants to wear because I feel like he's very open. I feel like there's no, there's no barrier to the sort of clothes that he puts on. Like, I really like that about him."

"What I think it's really odd about society, is that there's all these agreed choices between men and women of like, what's acceptable for each gender and I understand everyone's desire for like, tribal, you know, I mean, like, you can feel like you're part of a group if you if you do certain things, but I was raised by my mum to be the person who questions your questions, and I don't like getting told what to do. So even getting to the point where like, if society is like, you as a man must wear this part of me is like, well, I'm not going to because like, who's gonna tell? I'm saying, I think to myself, if a man says, I wouldn't wear that because I'm a man, I think well, how strong really is that because true fearlessness would be like no one can tell me what I can and can't wear. Do you know I'm trying to say when Dennis Rodman would rock up like I think he wore a wedding dress and married himself one time and had like multicoloured hair and and this guy has come from, you know, like the projects and he was a complete Rockstar to be fair, his lifestyle he was leading whilst playing for balls was crazy but like he was just like, you can't say a thing to him."

On being cast in Star Wars Rogue One...

" I was rehearsing for one of these crazy little rock band shows I was doing while with Wild Hood and then my agent was like, ah, you've got a script through called Los Alamos can you read it and let us know what you think. So I had to sign an NDA and then I started reading the script and then one of the first lines of dialogue is Darth Vader and I'm like, I remember  I was, I was trying to get my bike at a time. I think I was just spun out..."

"My agents had no idea and then they were like, "Are you free on Friday?" I was like, "Okay, well, what do I need to learn?" They were like, "they just want you on set Friday." So this whole time, bear in mind that as an actor, part of the requirement is you might have to be preparing like audition scenes, do self tapes, go for it do you know what I mean, that's a natural process and loads that I was I would never get and the next thing I know, I'm at Pinewood Studios, sat there waiting for explosions to happen so I can meet this director, sat there, Felicity Jones comes through, Riz Ahmed [I] actually knew from back in the day because he used to do poetry together and now he's like a huge Hollywood star and then I'm like, what is going on? I honestly was so tripped out by the experience I thought it was a joke, I thought I was getting pranked and, yeah, no, legitimate I was on a spaceship. I did feel a little bit like I'd won a competition."

"I definitely wasn't considered an important part of the set. I'm very early in the ladder of my acting career and it was good coming off the back of having a huge success in music, to be in that environment...and the thing that summed up for me was I so remember, I had my like, one of my first days of lines and it was just like, so brash, like, done a line move on, and I'm like, a billion people are gonna watch this and I had like, three takes and then I remember right into the job, and I found out who cast me this woman told me she asked me because she'd seen me in other things. This guy's just sweeping, it is after two weeks of mayhem, all these A List actors and this guy is just sweeping and he looks at me and goes "Rizzle Kicks"....I went, "Yeah" and he went "Thought so".