Rina Sawayama has released a new song called “Hold the Girl.” The title track from her upcoming album, the single premiered on Clara Amfo’s BBC Radio 1 show Future Sounds, and the vocalist sat down with Amfo to discuss the song.
“‘Hold the Girl’ was the first song I wrote for the record at the end of 2020,” she said in the interview. “I had gone to therapy and had a revelation, so I decided to write this song… that was the start of [the writing process for the album]. I was crying before going into the studio to write about it.”
Sawayama has also announced that she’ll be heading out on a North American tour following the release of Hold the Girl. She’ll perform in 13 venues across the United States, kicking things off at Brooklyn’s Avant Gardner before trekking up and down the East Coast, through Texas and the Southwest, and into California, with her final date at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles.
Hold the Girl is out September 16 via Dirty Hit. The album will include the recent singles “Catch Me in the Air” and “This Hell” and follow her 2020 self-titled debut album. Sawayama recently played “This Hell” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and the song later received an Ali Kurr–directed music video.
Revisit Pitchfork’s 2020 Rising interview “Rina Sawayama on Her Wildly Eclectic and Disarmingly Personal Debut Album.”