Even as she continues to sell out shows, Rina Sawayama still faces imposter syndrome.

“I always really underestimate everything. Because I’m, I think I’m under confident. So I’m always like, 'No, no one’s going to come,’” she told Teen Vogue earlier this year, even as there were plenty of fans lining up outside of New York City’s Mercury Lounge hours before her concert started. "I just have serious imposter syndrome. So I'm always like, ‘Yeah, my mom must have paid them.’ You know what I mean?”

As Rina continues to prove herself as a force to be reckoned with in the world of pop, it only makes sense that everyone would want to be at a Rina Sawayama show. While she still feels some anxiety leading up to her performances, it’s clear that the fans who flock to see her live are not imposters procured by her mother.

Growing up in the United Kingdom, the British-Japanese musician would regularly listen to J-Pop and her dad’s old Japanese records when she was still enrolled in Japanese school. At around age ten, she moved to English school, and that's where she became familiar with contemporary pop icons, including Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Ashlee Simpson, Avril Lavigne, and more. And while she was always interested in music, she put it on hold when she started college at Cambridge University. Rina fell in love with psychology, which she says she used to help make sense of what was going on in her life, including her parents' divorce. Through that discipline of study, she found herself also becoming interested in politics and sociology. And while she was doing music on the side, she focused on getting her education.

rina sawayama Zak Krevitt

Rina finished school and got her degree, but then decided she wanted to fully pursue music. She remembers being “so broke” after uni, at one point working three jobs at once to sustain herself while also performing. Clearly, it wasn’t easy, and she hasn’t always had the full backing of her parents. “My mom, she wants to be the supportive mom, but I think, like, all Asian moms, it just sort of comes out sometimes,” Rina said. “And she’s like, ‘So, when are you gonna get a proper job?’”

But fast forward to the present, and the rising singer is living out her dreams. In November 2017 she released the self-titled mini-album RINA, a project that showed off Rina’s ability to create ethereally-electric music that had underlying observations of how we navigate the world today. There’s "Cyber Stockholm Syndrome," a song about how we find ourselves immobilized by social anxiety thanks to our dependence on social media. “Ordinary Superstar,” which she thinks is probably the most subversive track off the album, explores the world of YouTubers and reality television stars and how their lives are anything but ordinary as they exist within a framework of self-surveillance.