Rina Sawayama

No one else treats the pop canon like a high-speed particle collider quite like Rina Sawayama. Her 2020 Dirty Hit debut, SAWAYAMA, was the mission statement: a world where Evanescence and Aaliyah aren’t just neighbors but collaborators. With producer Clarence Clarity, she slices nu-metal guitar squeals through the gloss of early-aughts R&B, interrogating hyper-capitalism on “XS” one minute and unleashing cathartic rage on “STFU!” the next. It’s a sound born from a Cambridge education and a deep love for pop’s most maligned moments. The 2022 follow-up Hold The Girl only went bigger, turning personal history into stadium-sized anthems like “This Hell,” proving she’s not just remixing the past—she’s building a new future from its spare parts.