During her set at Glastonbury Festival in the UK over the weekend, Rina Sawayama made comments likely directed at Matty Healy, the frontman of Sawayama’s Dirty Hit labelmates The 1975. Healy was also a director at the company until April, when his role was terminated.
“I wrote this next song because I was sick and tired of these microaggressions,” Sawayama told the crowd while introducing her song ‘STFU’. “So tonight, this goes out to a white man who watches Ghetto Gaggers and mocks Asian people on a podcast. He also owns my masters. I’ve had enough.”
Rina Sawayama: “I’ve Had Enough”
In February, Healy appeared on the podcast The Adam Friedland Show. During his appearance, he made reference to watching the racially-charged pornography series Sawayama mentioned above, which critics argue degrades Black women. At one point, Healy mentioned watching a scene in which a woman was “brutalised”.
Elsewhere on the appearance, hosts Adam Friedland and Nick Mullen mocked what they believed to be rapper Ice Spice‘s racial heritage, performing Hawaiian, Inuit and Chinese accents while Healy laughed along. Healy was criticised for his appearance on the podcast. He later made an apology of sorts during a show in New Zealand “I just feel a bit bad, and I’m kind of a bit sorry if I’ve offended you. Ice Spice, I’m sorry,” Healy told the crowd.
Last month, Healy said his comments didn’t “actually matter” in a profile in The New Yorker by Jia Tolentino. “Nobody is sitting there at night slumped at their computer, and their boyfriend comes over and goes, ‘What’s wrong, darling?’ and they go, ‘It’s just this thing with Matty Healy.’ That doesn’t happen.”
When Tolentino counters that that kind of thing might actually happen, Healy shrugs it off. “If it does,” he said, “you’re either deluded or you are, sorry, a liar. You’re either lying that you are hurt, or you’re a bit mental for being hurt. It’s just people going, ‘Oh, there’s a bad thing over there, let me get as close to it as possible so you can see how good I am.’ And I kind of want them to do that, because they’re demonstrating something so base level.”
Sawayama’s comments about Healy “owning” her master recordings likely relate to his previous position as director at Dirty Hit. Sawayama is signed to the British label, as are The 1975. In April, records showed Healy was no longer a director at the company.
Further Reading
Matty Healy Says Ice Spice Podcast Controversy “Doesn’t Actually Matter”
Rina Sawayama Review – No Genre Left Unturned at Artist’s Queer Rodeo in Sydney
Listen To Rina Sawayama Put A Pop-Metal Spin On Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’
