Rag 'n' Bone Man

Rag 'n' Bone Man at Rock am Ring 2017

Rory Charles Graham (* 29. January 1985 in Uckfield , UK ), known as Rag 'n' Bone Man is a British blues - and soul - singer .

biography

Rory Graham grew up in East Sussex in the south east of England. His parents were active as musicians, their love for blues music shaped him in his childhood. However, he took his first musical steps with hip-hop music. At the age of 15, Graham was active as a rapper in a drum 'n' bass crew under the name Rag 'n' Bonez . After honing his rap skills at freestyle and jam sessions in Brighton and on UK tour with hip-hop artists like Roots Manuva, he went to London to Slipjam B at Brixtons Jamm Club. Here he founded the Crew Rum Committee with Gizmo and DJ Direct , with which they were touring as the opening act for a few years and released their own album. He chose his stage name Rag 'n' Bone Man , in German " rag collector ", after the British comedy series Steptoe and Son from the 1960s and 1970s, which are about two junk dealers.

Parallel to this career, he worked privately on his potential as a singer. At the age of 19, encouraged by his father, he sang at a blues jam in a pub. The positive reactions meant that he soon released the self-produced vocal EP Blues Town. This brought him further engagements, and he was booked for acoustic concerts, for example as a support act for Joan Armatrading in the Brighton Dome .

During this time, Graham worked as a curative educator for children and adolescents with Asperger's autism . He gave up his profession in favor of music. In 2013 he signed his first recording deal with High Focus and released EPs Wolves and Disfigured , among others . He also lived in London for a while, but returned to the southeast. In 2015, Graham was featured as a discovery by the BBC and others. In the same year he also appeared at the renowned Glastonbury Festival . Columbia signed him and prepared his first album release for the coming year.

In 2016 further appearances at renowned festivals followed, for example at the 50th Montreux Jazz Festival and the Reading Festival . On July 21, 2016, the song Human was released as the first single from his debut album . Shortly afterwards, the song entered the charts in Germany and Switzerland. In Germany it reached number 1 on the iTunes charts at the beginning of September and number 1 on the official charts four weeks later . Austria and Switzerland followed. With eleven weeks at the top of the German charts (as of December 10, 2016), Human was the most consistent number 1 hit by a British solo artist in the history of the weekly German charts.

In 2017, Graham won the Critics' Prize and British Breakthrough Act at the BRIT Awards . In 2018, Human was named British Single of the Year , two nominations for the album and Best British Male Solo Artist .

On April 6, 2017 he was awarded the Echo 2017 in the categories "Best Newcomer International" and "Best Artist International".

Discography

Rag 'n' Bone Man at Rock am Ring 2017

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2017	Human	DE2 platinum (48 weeks)DE	AT4th gold (22 weeks)AT	CH1 × 2 Double platinum (76 weeks)CH	UK1 × 4 Quadruple platinum (104 weeks)UK	US117 (7 weeks) US	First published: February 10, 2017 Sales: + 1,850,000

EPs

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2014	Wolves	DE44 (5 weeks) DE	AT69 (1 week) AT	CH61 (7 weeks) CH	UK24 silver (9 weeks)UK	-	First published: October 24, 2014 Sales: + 60,000

More EPs

• 2012: Bluestown
• 2013: Dog'n'Bone (with Leaf Dog)
• 2014: Put That Soul on Me
• 2015: Disfigured

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2016	Human human	DE1 × 2 Double platinum (41 weeks)DE	AT1 platinum (30 weeks)AT	CH1 × 5 Quintuple platinum (71 weeks)CH	UK2 × 3 Triple platinum (49 weeks)UK	US77 platinum (7 weeks)US	First published: July 21, 2016 Sales: + 4,725,000
2017	Skin Human	DE10 gold (22 weeks)DE	AT7th gold (21 weeks)AT	CH6th × 2 Double platinum (43 weeks)CH	UK13 platinum (32 weeks)UK	-	First published: Jan 26, 2017 Sales: + 990,000
	Grace (We All Try) Human	-	-	-	UK83 silver (2 weeks)UK	-	First published: October 27, 2017 Sales: + 200,000
2019	Giant	DE6th gold (25 weeks)DE	AT8th gold (22 weeks)AT	CH5 platinum (35 weeks)CH	UK2 × 2 Double platinum (40 weeks)UK	US- gold US	First published: Jan 11, 2019 Sales: + 2,660,000; with Calvin Harris
The following songs did not appear as single, but were made available for download and streaming through the album and were thus able to achieve a placement:
2017	Broken People Bright: The Album	-	-	CH62 (3 weeks) CH	-	-	Chart entry: December 10, 2017 with Logic

More songs

• 2013: Rising Sun
• 2013: Nobody (with Leaf Dog)
• 2014: Hell Yeah ( feat.Vince Staples )
• 2015: Hard Came the Rain
• 2016: Healed
• 2017: As You Are

Guest Posts

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2018	Run B. Inspired	-	-	-	UK55 (8 weeks) UK	-	First published: August 17, 2018 Bugzy Malone feat. Rag'n'Bone Man
	Photographs	-	-	-	UK79 (1 week) UK	-	First published: November 2, 2018 Professor Green feat. Rag'n'Bone Man

Further guest contributions

• 2016: She (Stig of the Dump feat.Rag'n'Bone Man)
• 2017: The Apprentice ( Gorillaz feat.Rag'n'Bone Man, Zebra Katz & Ray BLK )
• 2018: Standard (Foreign Beggars feat.Rag'n'Bone Man & Bangsy)

Awards for music sales

Golden record  Australia 2017: for the single skin 2017: for the album Human  Belgium 2017: for the single skin 2018: for the album Human 2019: for the single Giant  Denmark 2017: for the single skin  Italy 2017: for the single skin  Canada 2018: for the album Human 2019: for the single Giant  New Zealand 2017: for the single Human 2017: for the album Human 2019: for the single Giant  Netherlands 2016: for the single Human 2017: for the album Human  Spain 2017: for the single Human 2019: for the single Giant

Platinum record  Denmark 2017: for the single Human 2020: for the album Human 2020: for the single Giant  France 2019: for the single Giant  Italy 2019: for the single Giant  Poland 2018: for the single skin 2019: for the album Human  Sweden 2017: for the single Human 3 × gold record  Mexico 2020: for the single Giant

2 × platinum record  Australia 2017: for the single Human 2019: for the single Giant  Belgium 2017: for the single Human  Canada 2018: for the single Human  Poland 2019: for the single Giant 3 × platinum record  France 2017: for the album Human  Poland 2017: for the single Human 5 × platinum record  Italy 2019: for the single Human Diamond record  France 2017: for the single Human 2018: for the single skin

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	silver	gold	platinum	diamond	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Australia (ARIA)	-	2 × gold2	4 × platinum4th	-	350,000	aria.com.au
Belgium (BEA)	-	3 × gold3	2 × platinum2	-	110,000	ultratop.be
Denmark (IFPI)	-	gold1	3 × platinum3	-	200,000	ifpi.dk
Germany (BVMI)	-	2 × gold2	3 × platinum3	-	1,400,000	musikindustrie.de
France (SNEP)	-	-	4 × platinum4th	2 × diamond2	1,000,000	snepmusique.com
Italy (FIMI)	-	gold1	6 × platinum6th	-	325,000	fimi.it
Canada (MC)	-	2 × gold2	2 × platinum2	-	240,000	musiccanada.com
Mexico (AMPROFON)	-	gold1	platinum1	-	90,000	amprofon.com.mx
New Zealand (RMNZ)	-	3 × gold3	-	-	37,500	nztop40.co.nz
Netherlands (NVPI)	-	2 × gold2	-	-	40,000	nvpi.nl
Austria (IFPI)	-	3 × gold3	platinum1	-	67,500	ifpi.at
Poland (ZPAV)	-	-	7 × platinum7th	-	140,000	bestsellery.zpav.pl
Sweden (IFPI)	-	-	platinum1	-	40,000	sverigetopplistan.se
Switzerland (IFPI)	-	-	10 × platinum10	-	200,000	hitparade.ch beta.musikwoche.de
Spain (Promusicae)	-	2 × gold2	-	-	40,000	elportaldemusica.es
United States (RIAA)	-	gold1	platinum1	-	1,500,000	riaa.com
United Kingdom (BPI)	2 × silver2	-	10 × platinum10	-	5,060,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	2 × silver2	23 × gold23	55 × platinum55	2 × diamond2

swell

1. ↑ Rag 'n' Bone Man on top40.nl, accessed on October 20, 2016 (Dutch)
2. ↑ Mike's Monday Music Playlist 16/3/15 , XWhy Magazine, March 16, 2015
3. ↑ Rag'n'Bone Man , entry at Radio Fritz, accessed on September 9, 2016
4. ↑ 'A little punk, a little jazz, a little shoegaze': meet the new blues , Laura Barton, The Guardian, January 1, 2015
5. ↑ ^{a b} Hot For 2015 - Rag 'N' Bone Man , BBC, 2015, accessed September 9, 2016
6. ↑ Rag'n'Bone Man - "Human" , David Micken, WDR 1, July 30, 2016
7. ↑ Rag 'n' Bone Man , UK Toast, August 7, 2016
8. ↑ Rag'n'Bone Man - Bitter End (Glastonbury 2015), BBC, 2015, accessed September 9, 2016
9. ↑ Sony Music UK's Tips for 2016 , Hits Daily Double, January 21, 2016
10. ↑ Rag'n'Bone Man ( Memento from September 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), announcement of the performance on July 13, 2016, Montreaux Jazz Festival
11. ↑ Line Up 2016 - Rag'N'Bone Man ( memento from September 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) for the performance on August 27, 2016, Reading Festival
12. ↑ Record Breaking Human on germanchartblog on December 9, 2016
13. ↑ Critics' Choice Winner 2017 , Brit Awards homepage, December 9, 2016
14. ↑ ^{a b c d} Chart sources: Germany Austria Switzerland UK US

Web links

Commons : Rag'n'Bone Man  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official Homepage (English)
• Rag 'n' Bone Man on SoundCloud
• Rag 'n' Bone Man at Discogs
• Rag N 'Bone Man: The MC building a refuge for his past loves (Interview, English)