RAYE's Lizard Music job is a bet on authorship, not a side hustle

Is a pop star's name on a film poster a career move or just a marketing sticker? RAYE's new gig on Lizard Music will answer that question, and the answer depends entirely on what she actually puts on the page.

Here is what we know. Deadline reports that the Grammy-winning singer is joining Benny Safdie's next film to voice one of the characters and to compose original music for the United Artists live-action/CGI hybrid. Dwayne Johnson stars and produces, and the cast also includes Alicia Silverstone, Tim Heidecker, Regina Hall, Colman Domingo and Jeff Goldblum. The film is based on the Daniel Pinkwater novel and is set for theaters on December 25, 2027. As Film Music Reporter notes, it is written and directed by Safdie.

The word that matters is "compose"

Pop has a long habit of renting out its stars. A single on a trailer, a name in the soundtrack credits, a theme song written to order. That is promotion, and it is usually forgettable. The Deadline wording is different: original music for the film, plus a voice role. Those are two jobs inside the story, not one logo outside it.

That distinction is the whole argument. A song placed on a soundtrack is a license. A score is a commission. It means sitting with a director, reading a script, and deciding what a scene sounds like before anyone has heard a note. For an artist best known for the song as a unit, that is a different muscle, and we think it is a healthy one to build.

Film gives a pop star what the single machine can't

The streaming single rewards the next three minutes. A film lasts. It gets rewatched, quoted and rediscovered, and its music is credited to a person rather than to a playlist slot. A release date more than a year out, December 25, 2027, also buys something rare: a long runway with a project that doesn't need to chart in its first week.

There is also authorship. Pop stars often work inside a system of co-writers, producers and label timetables. A score puts one name, hers, over the whole sound of a piece. If she delivers something distinctive, she becomes a composer people can hire again. That is longevity in a form the charts rarely offer.

Safdie's side of this is interesting too. Choosing a singer for the music suggests a director who wants a voice, not a stock orchestral wash. That is our reading, not something the reporting says, and we would not push it too far.

The risk: a name instead of a score

We should be honest about what we don't know. Nothing in the reporting says how much music she will write, whether she will work with collaborators, or whether the voice role is large or small. "Original music" could mean a full score or a handful of songs. Those are very different outcomes.

If it ends up being two songs and a cameo, this is a good press release and little else. If she writes the sonic world of a hybrid fantasy film, it is a genuine second career track. Pop-to-screen crossovers tend to be judged harshly because audiences can smell a name-borrowing exercise. The only defense is the work.

Our verdict

This is a smart move, and the smartest part, in our view, is that it doesn't look like a play to promote an album: nothing in the reporting mentions one. Watch for the credit, not the headline: if the film lists her as composer in a real sense, with music woven through scenes, it will say more about her ambitions than another single would. Until we hear it, we would hold the applause, but we would absolutely keep our eyes on it.