Adored by Adele and Florence Pugh, here is the voice of 2025

Rachel Chinouriri on growing up black in ‘racist Surrey’, resisting R’n’B typecasting and how she might support Coldplay next year

Chris Martin, if you’re reading this: Rachel Chinouriri has something to tell you. “I’m manifesting supporting Coldplay,” she says. “When I was younger, I had all of their CDs and vinyl; I remember sending them spam emails until they sent me a signed picture. I’ve seen them three times. I’m ready.”
After her own sold-out tour across the UK this autumn, and a slot opening for pop megastar Sabrina Carpenter next spring, the 25-year-old singer has the band’s record-breaking 10-night run at Wembley Stadium firmly in her sights. And the coveted slot is surely within reach: Chinouriri is signed to Coldplay’s label, Parlophone, and has fans in high places, from Adele (who described Chinouriri as “amazing” at one of her Las Vegas residencies) to Paramore’s Hayley Williams and actress Florence Pugh, who co-starred in the music video for her hit song Never Need Me.
Fusing elements of Noughties “lad” rock popularised by the likes of the Arctic Monkeys and the Libertines with frank, rhythmic indie-pop, Chinouriri’s lyrics centre on pop’s usual themes: heartbreak, growing up, finding oneself. Her debut album What a Devastating Turn of Events, released to critical acclaim earlier this year, ranges from witty takedowns of unreliable lovers on the Lily Allen-esque It Is What It Is (“I know what you’re like / Hot and cold, hit and miss, up and down / And a bit of a prick really”) to the heartbreaking true story of her cousin’s suicide on the title track.
Her music also delves into what it means to be black and British – but its magic lies in its ability to offset the heaviness with humour. This mix is evident in person, too: each serious anecdote is told with a laugh and a self-deprecating dry smile; on social media, her hundreds of thousands of followers across X, TikTok and Instagram tune in daily for her quick-witted stories.
The cover of What A Devastating Turn of Events features Chinouriri standing, defiantly, in front of a house emblazoned with St George’s flags. “My label asked if I wanted Union Jacks on the cover instead. But I said no,” she tells me one morning over bacon sandwiches near her home in east London. “If you put the England flag, everyone’s gonna take notice, because that [flag] means racism. That’s what my story is: I grew up in a very racist area in Surrey, in a very racist country.”
Chinouriri’s parents moved to the UK from Zimbabwe before she was born, raising her and her sister in the south-east’s sprawling, safe – and largely white – suburbs. Her regular experiences of racism felt “normal” because of her background: her parents had fought as child soldiers in Zimbabwe’s war of independence, aged only 13 and 14, and those difficult memories permeated their small home.
“My childhood was uncomfortable – being the only black, broke family in a white middle-class area,” she reflects. “It mentally, emotionally and physically affected me. But when I got to 18 I hit a point where I could either sit and complain about my traumas or make them work for me.”
She was raised on traditional, Christian music, only getting into indie and pop in her teens. After graduating from the Brit School, which counts Amy Winehouse, Adele and Raye among its alumni, Chinouriri struggled to be seen as an indie artist. Executives saw the colour of her skin as reason alone to typecast her as an R’n’B singer, but her one attempt at what she calls an “experimental” project – on 2021’s soul-inflicted Four Degrees in Winter – failed because it felt inauthentic.
Now, however, things are improving, as she rises through the ranks with fellow indie artists Cat Burns and Flowerovlove. “But that’s only three black women,” she says. “If you were to name female pop stars, most are still white. Most festivals I go to, I’m the only black person backstage.”
The typical experiences of women in pop – exploitation, being underpaid – still seem a long way off, she says, because she’s “still at the problem of being black”. Even her recent debut appearance on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge, where she sang a cover of Fontaines D.C.’s Starburster, was overshadowed by racist trolling – “my team had to delete so many racist comments because I’m not just a woman, but a black woman”.
It brought home feelings of other-ness already exacerbated by the horrific riots that erupted across Britain this summer. Chinouriri had released the video for The Hills nine months earlier: set on a Brutalist post-war estate, it shows her walking past white men trading punches and silent insults, the St George’s flag fluttering from grey balconies in the wind. Does she feel like it predicted the explosion in hatred that shocked us all? “When the riots happened, I thought: you can’t get rid of us. We’ve built a lot of this country, and you invited the vast majority of Caribbean people here – we’re the consequences of your actions.”
The song is all crunching guitars and whispering vocals that eventually build to a growl. “The point of the song is that I evidently don’t belong here – but then I do. I’ve been to Zimbabwe, I’ve been to Africa, and they call me English,” she says. “I am so out of place there: the way I talk, my tattoos.” Her decision to use the national flag as a symbol led to some defending her on social media: “They said ‘At least she’s embracing the flag and not being a thug’. But what a back-handed compliment that is: they’re saying, we like you, but we don’t like the rest.”
She’s made some lifestyle changes – she’s been working out regularly and has stopped drinking – to prepare for the next few gruelling months of touring. A stint supporting One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson last year showed her how easy it could be to fall into bad habits: partying, staying up late. It made her mother fret about her career choice, too: “She did not want me in this industry because of those kinds of things [drinking, drugs]. Amy Winehouse was 10 years ago, and now Liam [Payne] is this generation.”
Payne comes up, inevitably, while we’re discussing her time spent touring with Tomlinson, his former bandmate. The star died, aged 31, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a few weeks before we meet. Was she surprised to learn of the tragedy? She shakes her head. “It was such a shock – but then it wasn’t. If you’re online, he’d been trending that whole week. I feel like there’s a degree of mental health that is not allowed or accepted when you’re a public figure. There’s less understanding.”
The scrutiny experienced by stars like Payne is something she can’t yet relate to, she acknowledges. “That One Direction level of fame – I don’t think anyone apart from those boys will ever understand it […] that fanatic level of success, it’s such a unique experience, and who do you speak to about it? It’s a slippery slope”.
The conversation seems to be changing thanks to younger stars like Chappell Roan, who has cancelled multiple shows citing burnout and criticised her fans for overstepping the mark. Chinouriri says Roan was “absolutely right to put in those boundaries […] What fans need to understand is that the person they see on stage is a different person to who they see in the street”.
And the Rachel Chinouriri that fans will see on stage in Cardiff next week will look different to the one sat opposite me in Hackney – her outfit more glamorous, her voice powered-up and ready to belt out bangers. But the ambition will shine through just the same. “I want to do this for the rest of my life,” she nods. “I need to make sure it’s sustainable.”
Rachel Chinouriri plays The Globe in Cardiff on November 8, then touring; rachelchinouriri.com