Rina Sawayama.Photo: Nathaniel Goldberg
Rina Sawayamastrives to promote acceptance in her music.
In aninterview withEllefor the magazine’s 2022 Women in Music issue, Sawayama spoke about creating songs to represent queer people and their unique experiences in opposition to the largely heterosexual pop landscape she grew up with — and hoping it’ll create real change.
The 31-year-old Japanese-British musician, who graduated from Cambridge with a political science degree, has long incorporated social issues into her music. On her debut albumSawayama,she tackled racism against the Asian community in the music video for “STFU!” and addressed capitalism’s impact on climate change in the lyrics of “XS.”
Nathaniel Goldberg
“[It’s my mission] to make a pop song that sounds good, but also has meaning,” she said in the interview, published during LGBTQ+ Pride Month. “It’s really important to me that it has substance, it has soul.”
Similarly, Sawayama’s “Chosen Family” — which received a remix withElton John— celebrates the depth of queer friendships, a topic the pansexual-identifying musician plans to elaborate on with her forthcoming albumHold the Girl, out Sept. 2 via Dirty Hit.
“I grew up with songs about heterosexual love, and I don’t negate them,” she toldElle. “I think there’s a place for them. Most of the world is heterosexual; it’s not a big deal.”
“But my best friends and my chosen family and I are queer, and they are not hearing the songs that represent them,” continued Sawayama.
“Being kicked out [of your home] for being gay is not something that most of the world experiences, but that feeling of parental rejection is,” she said. “I always try to keep the chorus more universal, generic, so it’s easy to understand, and then try to tell a story in the verses.”
“That’s something that I’ve really amped up for [Hold the Girl], and I will continue to do,” added Sawayama. “If I can heal someone around me or someone that I don’t know with the songs I write, and I’ve been given an opportunity to do so, why wouldn’t I take it?”
Rina Sawayama.Nathaniel Goldberg
Keeping that ethos in mind, her goal is to break through the “noise” of the crowded musical landscape and leave a mark with her work.
“There are so many songs out there in the world, it kind of turns into noise, and I just want to do meaningful work,” said Sawayama before offering a bleak, yet somehow hopeful statement: “As we saw from the last two years, we might die at any moment.”
source: people.com
