This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Artist News Releases
Rina Sawayama announces new album, Hold The Girl
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 17 May 2022
Rina Sawayama has announced that she will release her second album, ‘Hold The Girl’, later this year.
The announcement comes after the musician began sharing imagery proclaiming that “Rina Is Going To Hell”, while also wiping her Instagram account, in recent days. Now she’s announced that the album will be out on 2 Sep, sharing a 40 second trailer with some snippets of the new music.
‘Hold The Girl’ follows her acclaimed 2020 debut album ‘Sawayama’, which sparked controversy around the eligibility rules for the Mercury Prize, after it was not – as had been widely expected – included in the shortlist for that year’s edition of the award. It emerged shortly afterwards that the album had not been considered because she was not deemed British by the definition in the award’s rules, despite living in the country ever since she was a toddler.
Following public outcry, the rules for both the Mercury Prize and the BRIT Awards – which are operated by record industry trade body the BPI – were updated. Under the new rules, artists will be eligible for the BPI’s British artist awards if they were born in the UK, hold a UK passport, and/or they have been permanently resident in the UK for five years.
The change meant that Sawayama was included in the shortlist for the BRITs Rising Star award in 2021, which ultimately went to Griff.
Last month, Sawayama released a collaboration with Pabllo Vittar called ‘Follow Me’. Watch the video for that here:
