Rina Sawayama is a singer-songwriter based in London, UK. And she’s the digital age heroine we deserve. Within her is a beautiful mélange of Cambridge-level intelligence, self(ie)-awareness, female experience, Japanese pop and British RnB. Her new single “Where U Are” dissects online relationships and the bounce between different realities. The Internet and how it affects interpersonal connections fascinates her: she told BEAT that her “EP could be academically titled ‘An Observational Study into the Effect of Technology on Relationships in Millenials.’”
It takes a serious sense of self-awareness to meaningfully talk about the present in the present, and Rina does so with a soulful voice that melts across instrumental spikes. And speaking as an Asian girl, I have to give her extra props for tackling a niche that has no recognizable frame of reference. She told DUMMY, “No one in the charts is Asian and doing a fusion of Asian and British pop music. It’s a very specific thing I’m asking for, but I just have to try it out.” So far, if her features with C-Heads and Polyester (and several other interviews) are any indication, she’s acing it.
This “cutie patootie making twinkle heavy R&B” is in the process of completing her EP Alone Together with Karma Kid, Tourist, and her producer, Hoost. Watch out for her.
Follow Rina here: SOUNDCLOUD / INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK / TWITTER
