Rina Sawayama (Japanese: 澤山リナ, born August 16th, 1990) is a Japanese-British singer-songwriter and model, based in London.

She was born in Japan and lived there until the age of five when her family moved to the United Kingdom.

While studying Politics, Psychology, and Sociology at Cambridge University, she decided to pursue music and modeling. Sawayama was first in a hip-hop group called Lazy Lion with Theo Ellis of Wolf Alice during her time at university.

Starting in 2013, she began working with London-based producer Hoost, including on her debut single “Sleeping In Waking” through Make Mine Records as a double-a side with the track “Who?”. She would begin performing live and released another single titled “Terror”, experimenting with the stage name RIINA.

2015 saw her releasing the single “Tunnel Vision”. In the same year, she released “Where U Are”, a rework of Michael Jackson’s “I Wanna Be Where You Are”

At the beginning of 2017, she released her single “Cyber Stockholm Syndrome” produced by Hoost and British producer Clarence Clarity. Her debut EP RINA was released in October of 2017.

On February 14, 2018, the single “Valentine (What’s It Gonna Be)” was released via 88rising, at the time she remained an unsigned and unpublished independent artist.

However, for the release of her second stand-alone single “Cherry”, Rina Sawayama began publishing her music under the London-based record label ‘Different Recordings’ but still remained unsigned. Rina has had numerous offers from record labels and plans to officially sign under a major label during 2019.

On November 27th, 2018, Rina released her third stand-alone single, “Flicker”.

Rina Sawayama’s debut album is slated for a 2019 release and is being executive produced by her main collaborator Clarence Clarity.

Rina has described her debut album as being Baroque and Dance inspired. Speaking to Anthony Fantano, Rina revealed that she is aiming for a couple of songs to be playable for Radio. Further stating that these songs are possibly dance tracks.