Musicians Rina Sawayama, Iza named to TIME Next Generation Leaders list 2021

31-year-old singer and songwriter Rina Sawayama is one of only two musicians to be named to TIME Magazine’s 2021 Next Generation Leaders list.

The other is Afro-Brazilian pop star Iza.

TIME’s 2021 list of Next Generation Leaders puts the spotlight on “trendsetters and trailblazers who are guiding the way to a brighter future.”

Here is how Time describes Sawayama:

“Rina Sawayama calls her favorite songs her ‘problem childs.’ They’re the Japanese British singer-songwriter’s deeply personal tracks that record labels are wont to reject. Take 2019’s ‘STFU!,’ which rages against the racism Sawayama often faces as a woman of East Asian descent….for Sawayama, it’s crucial to partner with the right people to amplify her stories—­especially since she devotes her songwriting to crafting ones that rarely get told.”

On Iza:

“I don’t talk about racism because it’s a subject I’m fond of,” she explains. “I talk about it because it’s necessary.”

Iza is symbolic of the new era she’s fighting for—a global cultural embrace of not only Afro-latino artists, but of people and their humanity. “Through the music I can say so much,” she says. “Our microphone is a weapon and it needs to be used.”

See the full TIME 2021 Next Generation Leaders list here.

Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.