Rina Sawayama has expressed her thoughts on Sabrina Carpenter’s recent performance on Saturday Night Live, praising the artist while also highlighting concerns about cultural insensitivity regarding the martial arts theme.
Carpenter took the stage on October 18 to perform “Nobody’s Son” from her latest album, Man’s Best Friend. Dressed in a short white robe with a black belt, she incorporated a fight sequence with her dancers into the presentation.
Marking her hosting debut on the iconic show, Carpenter also performed her single “Manchild” and touched on the controversy surrounding her album cover, in addition to playfully referencing her friend Taylor Swift’s track, “The Fate of Ophelia.”
The following day, Sawayama shared a snippet of the performance on her Instagram Stories, writing, “Sending big love to Sabrina, but to all fellow artists and creative teams: if we’re referencing a culture, let’s ensure we do so with thorough research, respect, and care. Shoes on tatami is a big no.”
Tatami mats, commonly found in traditional Japanese settings, require that shoes not be worn on them as a matter of etiquette.
Sawayama, who was born in Niigata, Japan, and moved to London at the age of five, has endeavored to preserve her Japanese heritage. In 2019, Vogue Japan recognized her as one of its Women of the Year.
At the Glastonbury Festival two years ago, Sawayama called out Matty Healy, the frontman of The 1975 and a former director at her record label, Dirty Hit, following a controversial podcast appearance where he made disparaging remarks about rapper Ice Spice and acknowledged viewing racially charged adult content.
Introducing her song “STFU!”, she stated, “I wrote this song because I’m tired of microaggressions. So tonight, this goes out to a white man who watches [adult series] Ghetto Gaggers and mocks Asian people on a podcast. He also owns my masters. I’ve had enough.”
She appeared to reference Healy again during her performance at NOS Alive in Portugal shortly after.
Not long after that incident, former collaborator Charli XCX unfollowed Sawayama, sparking speculation due to Charli now dating Healy’s bandmate, George Daniel. Charli later addressed the situation on X (formerly Twitter), clarifying that her unfollowing stemmed from a personal disagreement between friends, which they had since resolved.
In 2024, Sawayama, who released her latest album, Hold The Girl, in 2022, stated that she felt unable to release her next album “under my current conditions,” expressing feelings of being trapped and uncertain about her future.
She shared with The Independent that she has experienced intense racist misogyny in recent months, saying, “I feel as though I’ve been repeatedly gaslit, disrespected, and ignored for calling out blatant racist and sexist behavior.”
