The UK Queen of Pop that is Rina Sawayama featured on Genius' Verified series, where artists explain the meaning behind the lyrics of their songs, and she spoke about "XS". A very fitting choice and a timely video release for where the world is at now and what is driving the likes of the US and the UK to open prematurely in the midst of a pandemic.
Yes. The pandemic is still happening. It is not over.
It's easy to listen to "XS" and just take it as a flex song, which I'm sure some listeners did, which is probably part of what Rina wanted to achieve - to highlight that it's a thin line between being indulgent and capitalist conscious. So it's cool to have this video to really talk through what she was getting at in the song, and how each verse and section of the song has a different perspective on capitalist culture.
The way in which Rina Sawayama sees things and manifests them into songs is so academic. It makes her songwriting so layered to a point where even if you get what she's singing about, there's probably a whole other level of context that's unbeknown to everybody but Rina herself. For this reason, I would be very much here for Rina sitting and talk through each song on Sawayama and Rina as she did here for Genius with "XS". But at the same times, it's nice to leave something to the imagination and retain your own interpretation of what a song could mean without it being spelled out for you.
Anyway.
Rina is a bad bitch. Sawayama is a great album. Go listen to it.
📝 Random J reviews: Rina's first EP, Rina | Rina's first LP, Sayawama
📺 The music videos: STFU! | Comme Des Garçons (Like The Boys) | Bad Friend
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