Rachel Chinouriri Wins First Award, Teases Second Album
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- Rachel Chinouriri won best new music at the O2 Silver Clef awards — her first-ever award win, following nominations at the 2025 Brits and 2021 Ivor Novellos — and was handed the trophy by her former Brit school headteacher.
- Chinouriri performed to a crowd of 45,000 at Wolf Alice's Finsbury Park homecoming show, joining a roster of major support slots including Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, Gracie Abrams and Florence + the Machine.
- Chinouriri was due to hand in the final version of her second album, "I Think I Spoke Too Soon," the same afternoon as the interview; the record pivots from Britpop guitars toward Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Donna Summer, Prince and LCD Soundsystem-influenced synth-pop.
- Chinouriri attended the Brit school in the same year as Olivia Dean and Cat Burns, with Lola Young just below; she and Burns are now typically the only two Black women booked on UK festival lineups, a fact she flagged as "interesting."
- Chinouriri endured racist bullying at a majority-white Croydon secondary school — being spat on, called the N-word and taunted with monkey noises — and eventually enrolled herself at a more diverse school by pretending to be her mother on the application form.
- Chinouriri experienced her first panic attack in October 2017 while supporting Celeste at Laylow in London, and has spoken openly about stage fright, self-harm ("My Blood") and a cousin's suicide (title track) on her 2024 debut "What a Devastating Turn of Events."
- PinkPantheress, Chinouriri's friend and collaborator, told the outlet that Chinouriri "makes heartbreak warm and tolerable, even in the most painful situations," and her song "Dumb Bitch Juice" has become a fan anthem for surviving toxic relationships.
Why it matters: Chinouriri's Silver Clef win and second album land at a moment when she and Cat Burns are still routinely the only Black women on UK festival lineups — meaning the album's mainstream-pop turn doubles as a test of whether the industry's recent gains on diversity hold beyond the indie sphere she carved out on her debut.
