"I WANT TO have a legacy that is set in stone in the future, and I know what I want to represent," Rachel Chinouriri tells Rolling Stone UK over coffee in an east London café on an uncharacteristically balmy morning in early February. "What I want is to inspire the other 13-year-old Black girls who are confused about their identity but love rock music. I want them to be like, 'Oh God, it's possible. It actually exists. In 10 years' time, I'm hoping to look back knowing that my album has been really influential in helping move stepping stones for Black artists."
It's the bold manifesto of an artist who already knows what they want to be, and with extremely good reason. When Chinouriri was a teenager, the Londoner had two musical idols: VV Brown and Noisettes singer Shingai Shoniwa, both Black British women who were blazing their own trails within UK indie music.
But when Chinouriri set out on her own path, she was continuously mislabelled as an R&B and soul artist - even though a single listen of her breakout track 'So My Darling' is evidence that this couldn't be further from the truth.
"i've been doing music Properly since i was 18, so the fact i'm having my debut album all these years later is mad"
By 2022, Chinouriri had had enough. "My music is not R&B. My music is not soul. My music is not alternative R&B. My music is not neo-soul. My music is not jazz. Black artists doing indie is not confusing. You see my colour before you hear my music," she powerfully wrote on Instagram.
She adds to Rolling Stone UK, "I remember people putting Black squares on their Instagram when George Floyd's death happened, and they said they wanted to listen, so I thought, 'It's time for me to speak up about it.' Now, it's really worked out for me."
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Esta historia es de la edición April/May 2024 de Rolling Stone UK.
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Back to the Grind - The Clipse broke up when a spiritual path called to one of the brothers from Virginia. Now, one of the greatest duos in rap returns
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Chappell Roan The Pain & Pleasure of a Pop Supernova - Do you want to bedazzle my grinder?
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The Scream Queen Next Door - In just a few short years, Hunter Schafer has gone from small-town North Carolina to global runways, Euphoria stardom, and her first lead role, in the horror flick Cuckoo
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The Mix - String Theory - On new album Odyssey, Nubya Garcia conducts sweeping strings over her innovative saxophone playing to mark herself out as a unique star of the UK jazz world
There are clichéd 'difficult second albums', and then there are those where you start almost from scratch. The difficulty with jazz prodigy Nubya Garcia's second LP, Odyssey, came when she decided that this new batch of songs she had written needed the sweeping majesty of a string section, before deciding to learn how to write and conduct it all herself.
Daydream Believer - Welsh techno-pop artist Kelly Lee Owens is the first signing to Dirty Hit's new dance label, dh2. She talks
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Sounding the Alert - The UK music industry is calling for the new Labour government to make essential changes to rescue British music - from halting the closure of venues to providing essential opportunities for new talent
To quote one Bob Dylan: "the times they are a-changin." After 14 years of Tory rule, 4 July saw a changing of the guard in British politics as Sir Keir Starmer stood on the steps of Downing Street to mark the start of a new Labour government and - according to the man himself - a decade of national renewal.Not that the result was ever in doubt, however. A cursory look at polls over the preceding year showed that a Labour landslide was very much on the cards, and it seemed like those aforementioned Dylan lyrics were about to ring true.
Staying Power- As they gave their first performance in the UK for five years, Rolling Stone UK caught up with Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, HAN, Felix, Seungmin and I.N, who together make up the record-breaking K-pop phenomenon Stray Kids
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JAMIE XX WAVE AFTER WAVE
Nine years after his decade-defining debut album In Colour, Jamie xx returns with In Waves, a darker and broodier follow-up that saw him fall back in love with making music
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On their career-best fourth album, Fontaines D.C. have shed their skin of old to deliver something more fantastical. Grian Chatten tells us the story behind their evolution
