She said: “Seventeen to me is a child. You’re in school. You have no autonomy most of the time. If a schoolteacher is coming onto you, that’s an abuse of power. But I didn’t realize until I was his age.”  

Rina, who admitted to attending sex and relationship therapy in her thirties, said that these experiences influenced the track “Your Age” from her 2022 album, Hold The Girl.  

Listen to “Your Age”, below.

She continued: “I remember distinctly how uncomfortable that made me, but I didn’t put the two and two together. And it was through this very intense form of therapy, which I feel so lucky to be able to have access to, that I was able to come to terms with that, and it completely broke my whole world apart.”  

The singer, who was nominated for best new artist at the 2023 Brit Awards, added that whilst writing the album was one of the most difficult things, the reception has been incredible. She said: “It makes me so happy when I see especially like women or femmes in the audience connecting to it because I haven’t talked about this in specifics. I’ve just said it’s about a period in my life when I was younger, but I know the truth and when I look out to the audience, and I see femmes or women connecting to it, I’m like maybe you know what I’m talking about, maybe you’re feeling it right now.”  

Whilst Rina does not have a direction for her third album, she is ready to close this chapter. “I would love a day where I can just write a song that’s just about love or sex”, the popstar added.  

Hold The Girl is the sophomore album by British popstar Rina Sawayama. The album, which follows up from her self-titled record, includes hits such as “This Hell”, “Catch Me in the Air”, and “Hold The Girl.” The 2022 album achieved great commercial success and debuted at number three on the UK Albums Chart. Across the pond, the record debuted at number 166 on the US Billboard 200.  

The 2022 album received positive responses from critics, in which Hannah Mylrea from NME called it “The best British pop album of the year.”  

Rina’s live dates act as support for her sophomore album, Hold The Girl which came out in September last year. Last week she shared her latest single from her album, “Eye For An Eye” from the John Wick: Chapter 4 soundtrack.

There are special guests that will accompany her on her four-month tour and those guests are Magdalena Bay, Empress Of, and Tom Rasmussen. Those headlining shows will have Sawayama’s packed festival circuit finally filled out. The festival circuit will also include appearances at Governors Ball, Bonnaroo Osehaga, Lollapalooza, and Life Is Beautiful.

As Rina will be one of the performers at Lollapalooza, there will be a lot of Asian artists that will perform on that day, namely: TXT, NewJeans, Beabadoobe, NIKI, The Rose and DPR Ian, among others. K-pop girl group, Aespa will also be performing at the Governors Ball Music Festival.

HOLD THE GIRL RELOADED TOUR
sign-up for a special pixel pre-sale now !!https://t.co/3yKfD7Gzg2 pic.twitter.com/yEXTICnN7b

— RINA SLAYWAYAMA (@rinasawayama) March 28, 2023

Pre-sale for tickets starts on Wednesday 29 March at 10 am local time and general tickets go out on sale on Friday 31 March. Tickets will be available here.

Rina recently made her acting debut in John Wick: Chapter 4 as Akira. She spoke to NME for the Big Red cover story last year about her role as Akira: “My team are all just shook by the idea that we even got offered John Wick, so I think… none of us really know what’s going to happen. We’re just like, ‘What does happen to people in movies?'”

In a four-star review, of the film, NME wrote: “Chapter 4 doesn’t exude the wheel-spinning cynicism for a forever franchise. Stahelski may traffic in excess, but at least he understands it: how choreography, performance and style can make over-the-top spectacle cohere into pleasurably overwhelming action fizz, rather than congealing into a sweaty special effects overload. He also gets that after 169 minutes, some degree of closure is appreciated. There may well be a John Wick: Chapter 5, but Chapter 4 still feels like a movie giving its all.”

Rina spoke to Sky News about her acting debut, “I actually have been doing self-tapes, when I’ve been sent a really great script and when I’ve got the time, and also when I have the energy because I hate doing them,” she says. “But I’ve been doing them for several years, and I’ve gotten quite close to getting several roles but I hadn’t landed anything.”

Hold The Girl
The new album
September 2 2022https://t.co/1r1X9PKSmk pic.twitter.com/nw59Im5ra4

— RINA SAWAYAMA (@rinasawayama) May 16, 2022

The announcement shouldn’t come as a shock to any die-hard Sawayama fans. Last week she blew up her own socials by sharing banners and leaflets with the phrase “Rina Is Going To Hell”. Before taking the now popular move of wiping her Instagram completely to begin a new era for herself. The posts have stayed up on her Twitter though, and attached to a few of the posts you can find what appears to be a mailing list. I don’t actually know anything about what applying to this list will do if anything interesting, but if you’re a fan… it can’t hurt to get involved.

In another good step in the right direction, Sawayama is also set to head overseas tomorrow for an appearance on “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”. Say what you will about these American talk shows, but love them or hate them, the amount of genuinely great artists that have had a decent chance in the spotlight through shows like this is really quite pleasing to me. Rina Sawayama is hardly a household name here – which is a massive shame – but given the chance to get a step into the states… what a day. While you may not actually be able to access the show in the UK, clips of Sawayama’s performance will undoubtedly make it online in the next few days.

Anticipations are high for this new project, her debut was an absolute mystery to behold, and pretty much all of the singles released outside of the album have held up pretty well. Hell, even her appearance on that rubbish Elton John collaboration album was pretty good. Rina Sawayama and Dua Lipa were literally the only ones worth listening to. Hear it below.