- 2024-10-03
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MUSIC
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Rachel Chinouriri Premieres New Song “Even” with Cat Burns on BBC Radio 1
London-based singer-songwriter Rachel Chinouriri teamed up with London-based singer-songwriter Cat Burns to premiere a new song “Even” on BBC Radio 1's New Music Show with Sian Eleri.
This marks the first collaboration between Rachel Chinouriri and Cat Burns.
For Rachel Chinouriri, the song is the first music since her debut album “What a Devastating Turn of Events”, which was released back in May.
The track was written by Catrina Burns-Temison, Daniel Hylton, Peace Ugochukwu Okezie, and Rachel Chinouriri. Produced by HYLNU and Jonah Summerfield.
Rachel Chinouriri told Sian Eleri about the song, “I wrote this song ages ago, and then we had a verse which we needed, and then we sent it to Cat, and Cat had the time to do it. And the story as well behind it, and the meaning. And I think it's just important for both of us, as you know, black indie pop artists, to come together and everyone can love the drink and love fun. We're just doing what you can to make a difference.”- She continued, “I wrote it in a time where I felt like the industry was making place quite against me. In many ways, and I think, you know, I've learned to kind of come out of that headspace, because sometimes when things aren't working, especially as a black artist, you don't want to sit and be like, is this, because I'm black, that this isn't happening. And then the more in the industry I got into, I started realizing maybe there are things that are happening, and it's something I've spoken about, and something we've spoken about, something that has really changed over time. And I'm realizing how artists like me and Cat, artists all around the world are really important in being a voice in that change. And even though the change is like, kind of happening or beginning to change, it's just important to acknowledge that we can be frustrated about how uneven it can be.”
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Cat Burns said, “I feel really lucky to be where I am at in my career. But at the start, when I didn't have a following and stuff like that, I would be going label to label, trying to be like, hey, I want to do pop music, listens to music I'm making, and just being met with a whole load of no's and a whole load of this won't work. We don't know. We haven't seen this. We don't know where to place you. We haven't seen it in recent years. So we don't have anything to follow. And so I decided to kind of take the power back and grow a following myself and try and prove that for a black girl to make pop music. And so when Rachel sent me the song, I was just like, this is perfect, because there's so much that I would love to say about this.”
Rachel Chinouriri added, “Our craft is music and a song, and the fact that we have a song we can almost like leave the not so you necessarily move on. But at least we have something, but it's like we have something written where other artists can actually listen to, and other 13 year old girls who want to aspire to do music can go, okay, these guys aren't ignoring the issue at hand, which is blatant. They have something which can inspire them, and they know that people who are doing well or at positions they want to be at can acknowledge that it's going to be a tough journey. But they can also do.” - source : BBC Radio 1
