Related Articles
There are five versions of Rachel Chinouriri on the cover of her debut album, What a Devastating Turn of Events. One is settled on the edge of a love seat in the front yard, scribbling notes into a journal. Another is carrying a few bags to the trash. A third stands beside a groovy purple bike she likely outgrew ages ago. In the center, one stands glowing in the warmth of the sun — outside of the shadows where the others were — sporting the British singer-songwriter’s signature Y2K fashion, with chunky platform sandals and a vibrant knit skirt with a guitar in hand.
When the 26-year-old looks back at the image now, less than a year after the record’s May 2024 release, she’s cognizant of the distance between her present self and all of those variations. “I was so broken in many ways,” Chinouriri says over Zoom. “I was accomplished in a way of, ‘Oh my God, I’m taking the artwork picture for my album,’ but I was in such a mentally terrible place. I’d ripped out so much of my hair that I had clip-ins for that tiny little piece of hair at the back. My skin was breaking out. I just didn’t feel in my own body — but I still felt really beautiful on that day.”
What A Devastating Turn of Events proved to be her ticket to a new reality. “I am more confident within myself. I’m more confident in the songs. I’m far less stressed out,” Chinouriri says. The album chronicled depressive episodes, suicidal ideation, self-hatred, and grief. It translated those experiences while seamlessly traversing alternative rock, indie pop, and Top 40 sounds. And it was a great emotional purge. “I almost want to be as far away from that version of me as possible as each moment goes on,” she adds. “I’ve come quite a long way from that, and I’m quite proud of myself.”
Growing up in London, where she studied at the BRIT School, Chinouriri became well-versed in processing trauma. Her parents would recite “absolutely mental” stories from their time as child soldiers in Zimbabwe, and she saw first-hand how the experience had hardened their emotions. But hearing their history also opened her up as a listener and storyteller. Her own candor, blunt with an edge of sharp humor, similarly cracked her fans open. They often share their own painful anecdotes with her in person and through handwritten letters. “We’re all slightly broken or traumatized by something,” Chinouriri says. “We all accept that, and it’s OK to be emotional.”
The next album won’t abandon the revelations from the first one, but Chinouriri does need some space from it. “This is a world that I’ve now made, which I can step into when I need to and grab the stories that I need,” she says. “Or maybe I’m creating a new world where I write from a happy place and teach myself to write from a place of healing versus a place of trauma.” That part is unfamiliar, an intriguing possibility that could prove challenging. Unlike before, Chinouriri is in a healthy relationship, reaching her fitness goals, and investing in weekly therapy sessions over partying. “I’m not going to sabotage my new relationship and my level of peace to try and get these songs,” she says.
Still, she knows some of her fans might be one devastating turn of events away from rock bottom, and she wants to be there for them. “If in their day-to-day life they can’t speak to someone, but I’m the person they can speak to — if they feel safe enough to let me know those things — I think I’ve done my job,” Chinouriri says. In the meantime, she’s open to exploring new genres and topics to understand where she’s been and where she’s going. “As long as I put my heart and my creative mindset forward,” she adds, “my fans will always understand the story I’m trying to tell.”
About those fan letters: There’s a pile of responses that Chinouriri wrote a few months ago and has been meaning to mail out, but she hasn’t had time to get to the post office. She’s been busy preparing for her 20-date stint across Europe opening for Sabrina Carpenter on the Short n’ Sweet tour. “Even being put into the same brackets as those kinds of people makes me, for once, sit and be like, ‘Oh, actually, I do have the ability to be that successful,’” Chinouriri says.
She finds it inspiring that Carpenter became a leader in pop’s new era with her sixth album. “I’m like, OK, well, it doesn’t matter what happens on album two,” she adds, noting Charli XCX’s similarly lengthy trajectory to the top. “It might be album number seven that gets me to where I need to be. It might be year 15. But the thing that all those girls had in common was hard work.”
Chinouriri doesn’t mind playing the long game. Last fall, she was supposed to join Remi Wolf on tour in North America. She estimates that around 70 percent of her listeners are U.S.-based, but only a miniscule percentage have seen her live. She’s only performed here three times before. Her dreamy, nostalgic pop singles “Never Need Me” and “All I Ever Asked” go viral every couple of months, but she knows touring is key for building a sustainable living in music. “I want to have a real career and not just an online career,” Chinouriri says. “I know that the real world will serve me more as a musician.”
But when August came, Chinouriri realized money was really tight, even with support from her label, Parlophone. She had to drop out of the Remi Wolf tour or risk going into debt. She wanted to cry. “Sometimes your success can surpass your income,” she says. “People will see how it looks online. You’re hanging out with Florence Pugh. You’re wearing designer clothes — which, by the way, are borrowed. But the cost of touring is unbelievable.”
Even so, she’s done well on that front. She pulled a massive crowd at Glastonbury 2024, sold out her European tour, and has opened for Lewis Capaldi and Louis Tomlinson. Adele, a vocal Chinouriri fan (and fellow BRIT alum), has been trying to make it out to a show for months. She might finally get the chance when the singer embarks on her first-ever headlining North American tour in May.
For so long, Chinouriri operated in survival mode — a default for many Black women, she notes. “You’re already in a majority male, majority white male, space,” she says of the music industry. “Then you’re a woman, then you’re Black, then you’re trying to work, then you’re exhausted. And then because I’m not overly friendly, because I’m exhausted, I’m trying to extra be like, ‘Oh my god, hi!’— because I don’t want to be seen as the rude Black girl. It’s tiring.”
She powered through suspected racial profiling by venue security on her own tours, fought to be seen as a pop artist instead of being immediately defaulted to R&B, and grappled with what it would mean to be truly successful. “Something is shifting and I don’t know what that thing is, but it’s just made me feel like there’s so much hope for all of us,” Chinouriri says. “It makes me excited for what’s going to happen in the next few years. And hopefully the music industry is changing where they can be like, ‘Yeah, we can promote Black girls in alt spaces and indie spaces and pop spaces.’”
Now, Chinouriri feels more in control than ever. What’s meant for her — whether total pop domination or personal growth that once felt out of reach — won’t slip away that easily. “No matter what happens on this launching pad, whether it skyrockets me or I just take a tiny little step,” she says, “hopefully I’ve inspired other people to realize that everything will be OK as long as you stick to your gut.”
