Pop singer Rina Sawayama has spoken out against her labelmate, the 1975’s lead singer Matty Healy, for widely criticised comments he made on an American podcast in February.
Introducing the song STFU!, she said: “I wrote this next song because I was sick and tired of microaggressions. So, tonight, this song goes out to a white man who watches [pornography series] Ghetto Gaggers and mocks Asian people on a podcast. He also owns my masters. I’ve had enough.”
On the podcast, hosted by Adam Friedland and others, Healy joined in with mockery of the rapper Ice Spice, which poked fun at her imagined accent and heritage, wrongly identified as Chinese, Hawaiian and Inuit.
Elsewhere on the podcast, Healy said he watched the racially charged pornography series mentioned by Sawayama, referring to a scene that “brutalised” women.
Sawayama is signed to Dirty Hit, a record label that also releases the 1975’s music, and is run by the band’s manager Jamie Oborne. Healy was a director of the company between December 2018 and April 2023. The Guardian has contacted Dirty Hit for comment.
Healy’s comments were condemned by ESEA Music, an organisation led by UK-based east and south east Asian music industry professionals and artists, alleging Healy advanced “flagrant racism and complicity in laughing along at harmful Asian tropes”.
The comments have dogged Healy for months, and eventually, in April, he addressed the controversy on stage in Auckland, saying he had been misconstrued. “I’m kind of a bit sorry if I’ve offended you. Ice Spice, I’m sorry. It’s not because I’m annoyed that me joking got misconstrued. It’s because I don’t want Ice Spice to think I’m a dick. I love you, Ice Spice. I’m so sorry.”
In an interview in the New Yorker, he was asked if the podcast comments had deliberately baited his fanbase. “A little bit,” he replied. “But it doesn’t actually matter. Nobody is sitting there at night slumped at their computer, and their boyfriend comes over and goes, ‘What’s wrong, darling?’ and they go, ‘It’s just this thing with Matty Healy.’ That doesn’t happen.”
