British-Japanese pop iconoclast Rina Sawayama shares her process of learning to reparent herself and her postmodern take on music.

You&rsquo;ve been doing a lot of festivals and concerts&mdash;what&rsquo;s it like to be back in front of crowds, in real life and online?
It&rsquo;s been incredible! It&rsquo;s my favourite thing to do. I just played a festival I went to as a music fan when I was 21, Summer Sonic in Japan, where my whole family came to see me. It was the first time I&rsquo;d been back to Japan in three years so to be going back to perform in front of such an amazing crowd was surreal and magical.
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I really admire that you are not afraid to speak out and take a stand with your music. Why is that important to you?
Thank you! Yeah it&rsquo;s something that&rsquo;s hugely important to me. I feel a duty to speak out on issues. Even though creating major change is so difficult, I feel like as an artist I should start conversations and really it&rsquo;s about emphasising community when the world feels so disconnected, when people feel really alone. Even at my level, which I see as really &ldquo;small&rdquo;, if you&rsquo;re someone talking about things that people are going through, you&rsquo;re helping those people feel part of something bigger and they aren&rsquo;t the only ones feeling that way. And people struggling with things can feel they are part of a community, which is the best way to enact meaningful change&mdash;by doing it together.

My favorite song from your last album is &ldquo;Chosen Family&rdquo;. I really found solace in it. To your LGBTQ+ fans out here, what message do you have for them?
That you are not alone! Chosen Family was about finding my community when I felt very isolated and I&rsquo;ve had so many friends feel scared, shut out and like they had nowhere to turn because of a country&rsquo;s law or religious beliefs. I want my fans to know that the community of the pixels is always a safe and accepting space. I will always stand up and be a voice for you.
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In your previous album, your songs tackled issues like capitalism, racism and homophobia&mdash;with this new album, what stories are you trying to tell?
In Hold The Girl, it&rsquo;s more of an inner focus I suppose. After some therapy, I started this journey of reparenting myself and honouring the inner child that went through some really difficult times growing up. There&rsquo;re definitely political messages there, but kind of more told through personal stories rather than outward critiques.

Do you find that people misunderstand your work?
Potentially! That&rsquo;s a difficult question actually and I don&rsquo;t think misunderstanding is a bad thing really at all when it comes to songs. I&rsquo;ve had some feedback on my songs where people tell me how they felt which wasn&rsquo;t my intention, but if they&rsquo;re deriving something personal then that&rsquo;s a really good thing.
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Your work is often intensely personal, I am wondering if inviting people into your world is always a good thing, or if it&rsquo;s also overwhelming?
No, I think going back to the idea of community, letting people in is a good thing. If people relate to the stories you&rsquo;re telling, that&rsquo;s a really special thing.

Did you originally want to go into pop because of your personal interest in the genre, or did you have a more reforming agenda? Or did the two just go hand in hand?
I just love pop music, it&rsquo;s always been my favourite thing to listen to growing up even when I was really young. So my reference points always come from the pop world. When doing&nbsp;music seriously as a career that was the only route I think I could take.
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Your music videos are pretty major. What goes into envisioning and actually producing them? Any video that you&rsquo;re particularly proud of?
I&rsquo;ve been so lucky to find amazing collaborators in director Ali Kurr, and my creative director and best friend Chester Lockhart. They&rsquo;ve been so amazing at helping me tell these stories. I&rsquo;m most proud of Hold The Girl because it was a really long and pretty intense three day shoot with stunts, acting, choreo, so I&rsquo;m really proud of the physical achievement. But I&rsquo;m also really happy with how it came out conceptually. I was referencing really big shows and movies like Westworld, Interstellar, but telling quite a complex and emotional narrative. I can see those when I watch that music video. I feel we achieved something really big in scale that tells a very personal, emotive story.

As you enter this next chapter, what&rsquo;s driving you? What do you want to be recognised for?
I think with Hold The Girl, what was driving me was just great storytelling in the songs and I&rsquo;m really proud of that. When someone compliments my songwriting or recognises that it&rsquo;s a skill I&rsquo;m getting better and better at, I really love it. It means a lot especially with the difficult times and tough process I experienced while trying to write.

Interview: Rina Sawayama on her journey to pop stardom

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