Rina Sawayama releases hard AF new track ‘STFU!’

Based off an IRL convo Rina Sawayama had at a wedding where a guy asked her if she knew these four Japanese restaurants around Richmond and Wimbledon, ‘STFU!’ is her brand new banger about the rage against microagressions and being constantly stereotyped.

“As a Japanese girl growing up in the West I dealt with an array of aggressors ranging from: sexual stereotypes, comparisons with Lucy Liu and Cho Chang, to having to be the unofficial PR person and tourist board to Tokyo (a city of Western fascination that I left when I was 4), to people shouting Asian greetings down the street (nihao! Konnichiwa!), and finally to people doing ‘slit eyes’.” Rina explains. “The way I’ve dealt with these micro aggressions in recent years has been through comedy – my Asian friends and I have bonded over our shared experiences, laughing at how truly ridiculous these microaggressions are. Through humour and we heal and can move on. This is the spirit of ‘STFU!’ It was truly a therapeutic experience to condense all the things that people have said to me over the years into a situation that highlights how ridiculous these comments are when said all in one go in a context (like a first date) of flattery.”

Releasing the hard AF track - her first since joining Dirty Hit - there’s elements of nu-metal and pop whipped together to create a mosh-ready bop.

The first glimpse of a forthcoming new album, if you aren’t purely talking about how sick Rina is for the foreseeable future, you need to shut the fuck up.