1. Rina Sawayama is a Japanese and British singer-songwriter, actress and model.
33 Facts About Rina Sawayama
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Rina Sawayama was born on 16 August 1990 in Niigata, Japan.
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Rina Sawayama lived there until the age of five when her family moved to London, where she was raised and currently resides.
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Rina Sawayama holds an indefinite leave to remain visa in the UK.
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Rina Sawayama went on to cover the experience in second studio album, Hold the Girl, particularly in the song "Your Age".
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Rina Sawayama attended Magdalene College, Cambridge where she studied politics, psychology and sociology.
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Rina Sawayama graduated from the university with a degree in political science.
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Rina Sawayama began her solo career in February 2013, with the single "Sleeping in Waking", produced by Justin "Hoost" Tailor.
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Rina Sawayama would later reveal in a 2021 Billboard interview that the reason she used only her first name is because her last name was "an inconvenience".
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Sawayama was then an unsigned artist, and Rina was released independently; she confirmed on Twitter that she worked for two to three years to save money to release the EP.
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The Guardian deemed the EP "bracing and modern", stating that Rina Sawayama had proven "she can shepherd pop into the future, too".
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In 2018, Rina Sawayama released the single "Valentine" on Valentine's Day.
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Rina Sawayama embarked on her Ordinary Superstar Tour across the UK, the US and Canada in late 2018.
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In late July 2020, Rina Sawayama made a public tweet about her ineligibility to be nominated for major British music awards, such as the Mercury Prize and BRIT Awards, due to the fact that she does not hold British citizenship.
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On 26 October 2020, Rina Sawayama made her television debut performing the song "XS" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
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Rina Sawayama contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Enter Sandman" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021.
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On 3 September 2021, a remix version of Lady Gaga's "Free Woman" by Clarence Clarity and Rina Sawayama appeared on Gaga's remix album Dawn of Chromatica.
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Rina Sawayama started working on her second studio album in 2021.
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Rina Sawayama featured on the single "Beg for You" by Charli XCX, released on 27 January 2022 and later on "Follow Me" by Brazilian drag queen Pabllo Vittar, released on 31 March of the same year.
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On 16 May, Rina Sawayama announced that her second studio album, Hold the Girl, would release in September 2022.
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Rina Sawayama made her film acting debut in the fourth installment in the John Wick film series.
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Rina Sawayama released the song "An Eye for An Eye", which appears in the film.
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Rina Sawayama has starred in campaigns for Jourdan Dunn's Missguided, and wrote and performed an original track titled "Play on Me" for Nicola Formichetti's MAC x Nicopanda.
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Rina Sawayama was featured on the cover of British Vogue in June 2023.
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In 2016, Rina Sawayama collaborated with Taiwanese visual artist, John Yuyi, on a visual series critiquing Asian, including Japanese, beauty standards.
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Rina Sawayama has said that she began singing after her family engaged heavily in karaoke and first sang "Automatic" by Hikaru Utada in front of her parents as its music video aired on television.
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Rina Sawayama frequently cites Lady Gaga as an inspiration and began using her vocal technique bel canto after researching her singing techniques.
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Rina Sawayama listed Aretha Franklin, Beyonce, Janelle Monae, Alicia Keys and Karen O as vocalists she admires.
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At the age of twelve, Rina Sawayama convinced her father to give her a guitar after she began listening to Avril Lavigne and taught herself to play chords on it.
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Rina Sawayama has been vocal about the importance of feminism in the music industry, noting that "misogyny and abuse in the music industry" is rampant following complications regarding the ownership of her masters and therefore release of new music in the year 2023 and onward.
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In 2017, Rina Sawayama criticized pop-star Madonna for casting Asian women as nail salon employees, noting that Madonna chose to portray them as, "silent stereotypical accessories to her overpriced skin care line".
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In May 2020, Rina Sawayama revealed that she was doing an online course at the University of Oxford.
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In 2017, Rina Sawayama was ranked in The Guardians "18 for '18" list as well as Dazeds "100 people shaping culture in 2017" list.