Rina Sawayama has dropped two new tracks, including a new remix of ‘Imagining’ with Amaarae.
READ MORE: Rina Sawayama: “I want to make live moments and memories that last forever”
The British-Japanese singer recently shared her bonus edition of sophomore album ‘Hold The Girl’ on Friday (Dcember 8). NME originally praised the record in a five-star review, saying: “While ‘Hold the Girl’ is filled with often contrasting sounds, it’s rooted by moments such as these. Genres may come and go, but Sawayama’s second album is defined by her ability to fashion each of these sounds into big, brilliant pop songs. The best British pop album of the year.”
On the deluxe version, Sawayama released two new tracks: ‘Flavour Of The Month’, a bouncy Y2K-inspired song, and a remix of ‘Imagining’ featuring alt-Afropop sensation Amaarae. Take a listen below:
Sawayama recently teamed up with Empress Of for a new track called ‘Kiss Me’, taken from the American singer-songwriter’s upcoming fourth album. The pair have appeared in a music video for the song “in an angelic setting in the English countryside with their hair blowing in the wind”.
In other recent news, Sayama spoke out and claimed she was groomed by a school teacher aged 17. “Seventeen to me is a child. You’re in school. If a school teacher is coming onto you, that’s an abuse of power,” she said. “But I didn’t realise until I was his age.” The singer alluded to this incident on the track ‘Your Age’, taken off ‘Hold The Girl’.
In a cover interview with NME last year, Sawayama said that she “didn’t want to write a second album”, and that when she did, she “just wasn’t ready”.
She also hinted at a series of incidents from her youth and shared that she was undertaking intensive therapy at the time the record was written, explaining: “I always knew from the start that this particular incident that I’m kind of addressing is just very, very painful still. So even in the interviews, I’ve skirted around it, but it’s definitely been triggering me a little bit. In terms of the album, I’m really glad that I decided not to say exactly what it was because I think that would have been quite hellish in terms of talking about it.”
For help, advice or information regarding sexual harassment, assault and rape in the UK, visit the Rape Crisis charity website. In the US, visit RAINN.
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