Rachel Chinouriri on her heart-wrenching debut album: ‘I’m a Black girl making indie music – people didn’t know what to do with that’

As the indie-pop singer releases her first album, What a Devastating Turn of Events’, she speaks to Ellie Muir about the six years it took to release it, her music constantly being miscategorised as R&B or urban, and her decision to use the St George’s Cross on her album artwork

(Lauren Harris)

When indie singer-songwriter Rachel Chinouriri recorded her explosive and heart-wrenching debut album What a Devastating Turn of Events, it felt like catharsis. The 25-year-old has been signed to Warner’s label Parlophone for six years, and put out a series of lovesick anthem EPs over that time, but it’s only now she’s been able to release her first record. Why the hold-up? Chinouriri cites various factors today, including the pandemic, internal label politics and issues in her personal life. But really, nobody knew how to market her. “I’m a Black girl making indie music and I don’t think people knew what to do with that,” she says. “Whenever I put myself out there as indie, I’d constantly get miscategorised as R&B or urban.”

In January 2022, Chinouriri had an encounter with someone from the industry that tipped her over the edge. “He was like, ‘I love what you’re doing,’ and then he introduced me to someone as the ‘next R&B soulstress’…” Her words drip with exasperation. “I was like, we just had a conversation 20 minutes ago about me being indie, and then you introduce me to someone as that?”

Later that day, Chinouriri published an open letter online. It detailed her long-harboured thoughts about being relentlessly miscategorised. “When I was 18, I started putting pictures of myself to my music artwork and sometimes I regret ever doing that,” she wrote. “Before that it was always ‘indie’ or ‘alternative’ or even ‘electronic’. Then it became ‘you sound like a white girl’, ‘I can hear influences of soul’, ‘this is kind of R&B’… No, I am just Black and you see my colour before you hear my music. To be put into genres I never grew up listening to is so bizarre to me, then it clicked it was because of my skin.” Her TikTok video on the topic gained 1.1 million views, and Chinouriri tells me that other artists in the genre thanked her for speaking up.

What a Devastating Turn of Events is the result of pushing back for six years. It’s a vulnerable and stormy exploration of grief and love, but also silliness, and encompasses classic indie elements. “The Hills” is backdropped by a roaring shoegaze-style electric guitar, as the singer discusses the loneliness she felt while working in LA. In the title track that tells the story of a family member who took her own life, Chinouriri’s sugar-spun soprano vocals skate across a down-tempo drum beat. Then there’s the witty, Lily Allen-style “Dumb B**** Juice”, a tongue-in-cheek anthem about the perils of wasting time on guys, which showcases the bubbly personality of Chinouriri in front of me today: she sits cross-legged on an armchair at her label’s offices, cracking jokes as she fiddles with the furry Y2K-style boots on her feet.

Born in Croydon to Zimbabwean parents as the youngest of five siblings, Chinouriri began songwriting aged 14. Rather conveniently, the Brit School, a south London arts college with starry alumni including Amy Winehouse, Adele and Lily Allen, was down the road.

When she arrived there aged 16, she felt lost compared to her classmates, who seemed fixed on their decided paths. “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do,” she says. “I remember singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ in front of my class and immediately burst into tears.” She eventually settled into musical theatre, spending her days gleefully step-ball-changing around dance studios and writing lyrics in her spare time. “I threw myself into it, and maybe I became a little too over confident, but I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”

The album artwork for Chinouriri’s album ‘What a Devastating Turn of Events’ (Parlophone)

Cut to 2024, and everything about What a Devastating Turn of Events has been meticulously planned, including the cover art. The imagery bleeds Cool Britannia, with the singer standing outside a council house adorned with St George’s Cross bunting. This visual is something Chinouriri demanded. “I said to my label, I don’t want to use the Union Jack, let’s go full on England,” she laughs.

Chinouriri hangs St George’s Cross bunting out the window on her accompanying album artwork (Parlophone)

Young musicians are increasingly reclaiming the aesthetics of Cool Britannia and Britpop: Yorkshire-born Jungle artist Nia Archives wears a diamante union jack grill on her debut album, Silence is Loud; producer AG Cook named his recent album Britpop, which has a psychedelic pink union jack as cover art. It’s an interesting trend considering many left-leaning young people shy away from national symbols due to their sometimes negative, far-right associations. “For Black people and POC, that flag’s not something people are necessarily proud of,” says Chinouriri. “[The album imagery is me saying] I’m proud of being English because I am English, you can’t confiscate my passport – you can try but you won’t be able to. There are so many Black Brits who I grew up listening to, who have contributed to indie music and are not often recognised, like Shingai Shoniwa from the Noisettes and Skin from Skunk Anansie.”

Does Chinouriri still regret putting her face on her cover art, like she said in her 2022 letter? “If I could be incognito, that would be a dream,” she admits. “I think there’s a degree of fame that’s a bit terrifying. There’s also an air of pressure of being a woman in the industry to look a certain way. I wish there was a way I could do this all without putting my face on it.”

Chinouriri singing about the loneliness she felt while working in LA in her song ‘The Hills’ (Parlophone)

The singer is getting more comfortable with the visibility that comes with musical success, but there are some aspects she’s still grappling with. Like passionate fans. At a recent show, a group of them broke into the backstage area, with one posing as an A&R executive. It’s a bizarre moment she can laugh at now, but it hammered home the reality of fame. “This boy approached me and shook my hand,” she says. “I was thinking, ‘Oh they must be working.’ And then he asked me if he could get a picture, and I was like, wait? Then I noticed three girls standing backstage and they had loads of sparkly clips in their hair and nice makeup. They admitted they broke in and wanted to say hi,” she smiles. “It was hilarious but then I was like, wait, I actually need a security guard here because I was just about to get changed!”

Speaking of which, Chinouriri is about to don her gym kit. She’s got a car outside waiting to take her to a session – one of many in her newly regimented fitness routine as she prepares for tour. “It’s no joke, you’re jumping up and down for more than an hour on stage each day,” she says. “And you also have to have good breath control. It’s a lot of work.” After years of trying to make herself heard, she’s determined to make this moment matter.

‘What a Devastating Turn of Events’ is out now via Parlophone Records