Rina Sawayama teases new music is on the way: "I'm back in the studio"

Rina Sawayama is giving fans hope about her next album.

Speaking with BuzzFeed, the singer/songwriter and actress reflected on her forthcoming project, which she said is likely to drop next year. Ahead of the 9th Crunchyroll Anime Awards, she spoke with the outlet about how she drew inspiration from anime, new music, and her surprising voice acting project.

The John Wick 4 actress said of her next album:

"So someone on Instagram was joking that I'm 'thawing', I'm 'defrosting' because I've been on put on freeze for a year. But I'm so honestly grateful that my fans have just stood by and listened to my old music and just let me have that space. I just was simply quite overwhelmed by all of it in a good and bad way."

Rina Sawayama went on:

"There's just so much happening. So yeah, I'm back in the studio. I'm going to be doing an LA trip soon and writing music. And I've actually been sort of stealth writing since August last year."

Rina Sawayama talks new music, and anime: Read more

Rina Sawayama told the outlet in her interview that she's trying to do something different with her writing process. In the past, she would write 15 songs and greenlight 13 of them for her album. Now, she's trying to pen 50 so she can "write more and just develop the ideas."

"I mean there's a song that I revisited recently or my manager mentioned this song that I had written maybe five, six years ago that I never released. And I was like, 'Oh my God, we should totally rework that to fit the production of this record'"," she said. "And it is also really nice because you get set in your writing ways after a while, so it's nice to revisit Baby Rina who wasn't thinking about all this other stuff. There is new music coming," she reiterated.

Rina Sawayama, who will also be presenting at the 2025 Anime Awards in Tokyo, reflected on how anime plays an influential role in her life:

"It's the perfect in-between of nostalgia, even if it's a new series, but also it makes me feel quite calm in a way. It also expands the horizons of what's possible, visually. And also it's also quite a 'brain-off' activity for me. So I try to watch anime rather than reality TV, which I'm sort of a bit obsessed with right now."

Rina's forthcoming album was delayed due to her mental health

Back in March 2024, the actress got candid during her interview with The Independent, where she revealed that her forthcoming album would come on its own pace, citing her "current conditions."

The article, which came out as part of International Women’s Day (March 8) and touched on how women have to tackle sexism and misogyny in the industry, saw Rina Sawayama note that her “mental health has been awful in the past year."

“I’ve been lucky to have found ways to keep my business afloat and support myself as well as my team, but when it comes to new music I can’t release another album under my current conditions," she said. “I feel really trapped and don’t know what to do.”

She also reflected on how she has “felt intense racist misogyny in a way that I’ve never felt before" since the previous year.

“I just want to leave this world a fairer, safer and kinder place for future generations to live in,” she continued. “That’s always been my mission from the start and I’ve always used my voice for this, but time and time again, women are punished for inconveniently holding a mirror up to men who were not willing to be held publicly accountable. My peers and I share stories and it’s clear there are a lot of men working in this industry who continue to get away with awful behaviour.”

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At the time of writing, further details about Rina Sawayama's forthcoming album remain unclear.

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