In 2024, the multi-hyphenate talent took a step back from the spotlight to recalibrate. Now, she’s gearing up to release her highly anticipated third studio album, reprising her role as Shimazu Akira in the John Wick spinoff “Caine” and set to have a recurring role in Apple TV’s “Prodigies” alongside Ayo Edibiri and Will Sharpe. As she gears up for 2027, she’s been named Haku Vodka’s inaugural Brand Ambassador.
Alongside the announcement, the brand also launched its first campaign titled “Made to Shine,” celebrating “individuality and ingenuity,” all while “encouraging people to look beyond the familiar.” The partnership kicked off with an exclusive launch party earlier this week, and Sawayama collaborated with the team on everything from creative direction to the craft vodka cocktail menu. Ahead of the event, Variety sat down with Sawayama to talk new music, overcoming burnout and her essentials for when she’s on the go: I took time away starting in 2024. I just felt so overwhelmed and pretty exhausted.
It’s this weird thing where every day, you’re doing something incredible, like a mind-blowing dream come true, yet the more I pushed myself to do a month with no break — as in no weekend for several weeks — because every opportunity was exciting, the more I lost sensation. Physical sensation, emotional sensitivity, I just lost it. When I took time off, I decided that I was going to move countries, so I moved to Tokyo, a city I’ve not lived in for 30 years, and I just wanted to see what came.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had burnout, but it’s just this weird multisymptomatic thing. What resulted from that is interesting because I think by regaining that feeling, I was able to trace back through my own personal history and draw things from there. Connections between different emotions that feel quite unrelated, and, really, the record is about the one emotion that ties it all together.
It’s an exploration of that. I’m trying to transmute whether it’s poetry or a speech that I’ve read into music, and, at the same time, trying to honor a real legacy of activism. I’m trying to be part of the living legacy of that activism in my own way.
It was invaluable to take that break, and I feel really grateful that I was able to, and that my fans are still interested in the music. To be honest, I didn’t think I would return to doing music for about six months to a year. There was a time, fresh out of that burnout feeling, that I didn’t think I could do it.
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