Rina Sawayama Essentials

She was born in Japan and raised in the UK, but the pop singer (and sometime model) Rina Sawayama may be, first and foremost, an iconoclast. She has a penchant for the neglected and less acclaimed sounds of the ’00s, whether it’s Britney-era pop or nu-metal in the vein of Korn. But her sonic instincts are unimpeachable and unironic: she imbues all her work with genuinely affecting emotion. Her 2017 EP Rina’s promising pop nuggets set the stage for her debut full-length, 2020’s remarkable Sawayama. Delights include “STFU!”, which eviscerates racist execs in the music industry, and the painful, honest “Bad Friend”.