Rachel Chinouriri Details

British singer/songwriter Rachel Chinouriri brings an indie sensibility to her experimental electronic pop with dark, vulnerable lyrics. Born in London to Zimbabwean immigrant parents with strict, traditional values, her limited exposure to secular music means she developed a uniquely personal indie folk sound. It was a style that distinguished her 2021 debut mini-album Four Degrees in Winter and her 2022 EP Better Off Without.

Chinouriri was born into a large family who had emigrated from Zimbabwe and settled in Croydon, South London shortly before she was born. Brought up with traditional, conservative African values, she was forbidden from listening to secular music at home but nevertheless discovered artists like Coldplay, Daughter, and Lily Allen, who formed the basis of her own style alongside African acts like Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Learning to play acoustic guitar, she developed a uniquely personal indie folk sound. In 2016, at the age of 17, she self-recorded a few lo-fi demos on her mom's laptop with a cheap microphone and posted them online as the Bedroom Tales EP. The songs combined folky, finger-picked acoustic guitar and basic programmed beats with her smoky, soulful voice and surprisingly mature, dark subject matter; it attracted attention on music blogs.

Enrolling at the famous BRIT School, she studied musical theater in order to grow as a performer (and bypass songwriting theory classes), and continued to record her own music. Her popularity grew, and she signed a management deal, worked with various producers, and was featured on several singles, including Preditah's "Animals." In 2020, Chinouriri signed to Parlophone, which released her debut mini-album, Four Degrees in Winter, the following year. It has a fluttering, electronic- and hip-hop-influenced experimental pop sound, while the lyrics take a dark and vulnerable tone. 2022 saw the release of her third EP, Better Off Without, which included the dreamy singles "All I Ever Asked" and "Happy Ending."