FEATURE:
Bright Young Hopes
IN THIS PHOTO: Pa Salieu has been nominated for the BRITs Rising Star award alongside Rina Sawayama and Griff
The BRITs Rising Star 2021 Nominees
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ALTHOUGH the news has been out there…
IN THIS PHOTO: Griff
since last week, I wanted to talk about the trio of names that have been nominated for the BRITS Rising Star. It is an award that is handed to a truly promising talent; one that is primed for big things. The BBC discussed the news last week:
“Griff, Pa Salieu and Rina Sawayama have been nominated for the Brits rising star award, which recognises pop's ones-to-watch for the coming year.
The prize, which was called critics choice until last year, has previously gone to Adele, Celeste and Jorja Smith.
Sawayama's nomination comes after the singer persuaded the Brits to change their eligibility rules last month.
The British-Japanese singer had been excluded because she didn't hold a British passport or dual citizenship.
New rules - announced on the day that voting for the rising star award opened - allow any artist who has been resident in the UK for more than five years to qualify for the main prizes.
"I literally fell to the floor when I found out that I'd been nominated," said the singer.
Griff
Griff is the stage name of 20-year-old Sarah Faith Griffiths, whose evocative and catchy pop songs have already seen her nominated for the BBC Sound Of 2021 award.
She discovered music after hearing Stevie Wonder's Pastime Paradise at the age of five and learned to sing in her church choir; but she says "the first album I think I really loved out of choice was Taylor Swift's Fearless".
Griff had her first recording session at the age of 10, "just doing embarrassing things in a band". By the time she left school, she'd signed a deal with Warner Music, releasing her first single in July 2019, two weeks after she finished her A-Levels.
Last year she took over the Tate Modern for her second ever London show, and provided the song for Disney's Christmas advert.
Pa Salieu
Born in Slough, Pa Salieu Gaye spent his early years in Gambia, living with his grandparents on his family's farm; before moving back to the UK and settling in Coventry.
He started making music at his local youth club (Positive Youth Foundation), and released his debut single Never Had in September 2018.
Not afraid to experiment with different sounds and styles, he draws on everything from dancehall and drill, while incorporating the hand-drummed sounds of his Gambian heritage. "I don't do genres," he said in one interview, "I do everything".
Last November, he released his debut mixtape Send Them To Coventry, full of adventurous, infectious tracks with hard-hitting lyrics about life and death on the "frontline" in Coventry.
Rina Sawayama
Born in Niigata, Japan in 1990, Rina Sawayama moved to London at the age of five with her parents, where she has lived ever since.
She attended a Japanese school, learning calligraphy and dance, and eventually studied politics, psychology and sociology at Cambridge University.
Her first musical venture was a hip-hop group called Lazy Lion, which also featured Theo Ellis from Wolf Alice.
But she struck out as a solo artist in 2013, crafting a futuristic version of pop that incorporates elements of R&B, thrash metal and even Japanese opera.
The star's debut album, simply called Sawayama, was released last year and delves deep into her parents' divorce, her wild teenage years, and the acceptance she found in the LGBTQ+ community.
It has since amassed more than 100 million streams worldwide, and was named one of the albums of the year by NME, the Guardian and the New York Times, which called it "the year's most audacious pop statement".
I think that the names selected this year are among the best there has been for years. In terms of gender and racial diversity, there is a big step forward. The same goes for the range of music on display. One cannot easily link Rina Sawayama, Pa Salieu and Griff! They are all very different and they each are going to make a big imprint on the musical landscape in years to come. Right now, I would say Rina Sawayama is probably the favourite to win. She released her debut, SAWAYAMA, last year. That album has picked up some great acclaim. I am going to bring in a bit of interview background for each of the three artists. Late last year, Rina Sawayama spoke with The Line of Best Fit. We learned more about an incredible and hugely exciting artist:
“For Rina, pop music became a way to connect with people at school. “I joke that I missed out on the whole of the Spice Girls and I really did,” she says. “I got the tail end of it and I loved it, but my thing was when Britney was coming out. And Kylie. I remember the first Number One that I really connected with was 'Kiss Kiss' by Holly Valance. And it was genuinely a way for me to connect with my friends. At that point, I had moved school about four times. I didn't have friends, basically. I remember assembling girls to make an S Club 7 tribute band. That was such an amazing way to get over that cultural barrier that was there.”
IN THIS PHOTO: Rina Sawayama
Bridging that cultural divide was a one-way transaction, though, and Rina remembers her reluctance to ingratiate her Japanese culture into the life that she had begun building for herself in England. This dissonance was further complicated after her parents separated and Rina was left sharing a room with her mother due to financial difficulties. As she entered her teen years, tensions were rising.
SAWAYAMA also explores Rina’s evolving relationship with Japan and Japanese culture. On “Akasaka Sad”, she touches on the lingering spectre of depression and the displacement she sometimes feels when she visits the country. Likewise, “Tokyo Love Hotel”, a song that sounds like the shimmering lights of a cityscape, explores the lack of ownership Rina feels over Japanese culture.
“I've said since the beginning that I don't want to be another stereotype and I don't want to do the same thing that people have heard about Japan,” she says. “I have lived [in the UK] all my life and so I bring a unique perspective. I don't think I'm this 'kawaii' person or whatever it is people want to impose on me. I remember being so careful about my marketing and branding from the beginning to not be that way. I was trying to carve this place out for myself, yet so many people have gone into that [cultural] space and taken so much that I feel, like, should belong to me that's now been weaponised. I can't use that culture anymore as it's then seen as basic. I think other POC think about this. Like when Black culture gets used to make an artist edgy and then they safely retreat back into a different genre. It's so typical of that”.
I am excited to see where Pa Salieu will go and what we might get in future releases. He is a very original and exceptional artist. He spoke with NME earlier in this year. Not only do we learn about his background and move from England to The Gambia (and back); there is a definite nod to a bright future:
“Pa Salieu was born just outside of London, in Slough, but being the eldest of three, a sense of responsibility has always weighed heavily on him. He was sent back to The Gambia, a small country on the coast of West Africa, when he was two to live with his grandparents for five years. His parents needed more time to work and to send money back home while they raised his siblings.
When Pa came back to England, the adjustment was tough. His parents had moved to Hillfields, Coventry, a notoriously low-income section of the city. 14 per cent of neighbourhoods in the city are among the top 10 per cent most deprived in the country.
“Third or fourth week back in England, they told my mum, ‘It’s best to take Pa to another school,’” he recalls in a soft voice, shaking his head. Bullied for his accent, his clothes and his demeanour, Pa’s refusal to shed his love for The Gambia brought him enemies in the schoolyard.
Pa’s voice is strained as he recalls his childhood in Coventry, but his face relaxes, peeking out of the hooded jacket to describe his childhood in The Gambia. “If you’re hungry there, you don’t even need to ask,” he says. “They’ll see and they’ll come and give you food. Everyone shares. We used to call the neighbours down and eat with us on these big plates. At least there’s freedom back home. If you ain’t got no money [in the UK], no one wants to love you. The world is different here.”
Though he’s relentless in his work ethic, he’s also figuring out the first steps in what he hopes to be a lengthy career. And right now, what he wants to reiterate to fans, journalistic, critics, label heads – everyone, really – that expectations put onto him will only disappoint. “The way I put myself through school is the way I will carry on, which is to not exclude myself, but to keep myself away. The music is going to remain from the source it came, so they better not expect anything from me. Surprises, that’s it. This is me, bro.”
Pa deservedly sits atop of the NME 100: he is an example of original, raw musical talent, but just as interested as making a difference in the long run.
“You’re going to hear everything I do,” he says. “Whether it’s music or my work in Gambia. What I do will never disappear”.
I will finish by bringing in an interview Griff. I am especially looking forward to hearing a debut album from her. When she spoke with The Forty-Five earlier in the year, we get a great and intriguing impression of a versatile and compelling artist:
“Just when you think you’ve got Griff sussed, though, she does a 180 on you. The gentle, piano-led ‘Good Stuff’ might sound like a break-up song on the surface, but it’s actually an ode to all the foster children that have passed through her family home over the years. “Why’d you leave me with the good stuff, babe?” she questions on the emotional track but today she’s all smiles when she talks about having new siblings come in and out of her life.
“I got more used to it the more we did it,” she explains. “There was always such a huge age gap between me and the kids, so it was really fun and cute to have little kids running around the house.” The song she wrote about them might focus on these children not living with her anymore, she says that wasn’t a thought she was preoccupied by whenever a new foster child joined her family: “I don’t think that in the moment while they’re staying with you, that you really dwell on the fact they’re not going to be here forever.”
charges did try and copy what she was doing while they were living with her. “They always used to just burst in and start playing,” she laughs. “Or they’ll pick up something and pretend it’s a microphone because they’ve seen me singing.”
The 20-year-old’s family environment has generally always been supportive of her and her brothers pursuing creative endeavours. Their dad used to be a gospel singer who would “always sing in church back in his heyday” and pushed them in the direction of music. Griff started playing piano aged six, determined not to be left out of the lessons her elder siblings were getting. It was because of them she took her first steps into producing too, hijacking the copy of Logic her dad had bought for them so she could record the piano covers she learnt to kill time.
The fact that the rising musician has the ability to produce her own tracks is something that’s often celebrated about her – a far too rare instance of a woman in pop music possessing that know-how. She says she was blissfully unaware of the gender divide in that area until she started going to studio sessions, noting sadly that the assumption now is “when you go to the studio, the producer is a guy”.
And has she thought ahead to what a debut album might look like? “It’s just so much music, isn’t it?” she grins. “I want to release an album when everyone’s ready to digest that – especially now we don’t have attention spans for that much music, unless you’re obsessed with an artist.” Though she admits, despite being a child of the streaming generation, full-length records are still important to her and she wants her debut to be “one of the most thought-through pieces of music that I ever put out”.
I am looking ahead to see which of the three amazing artists above will take how the BRITs Rising Star award. They are all worthy. Whilst I have my personal preference, I think all three are very deserving. It just goes to show how much talent there is in Britain right now! The diverse and exciting sounds of Rina Sawayama, Griff and Pa Salieu are definitely worth fonder investigation. All three of them are rising stars who are going to shine bright…
FOR a very long time to come.