THE tears arrived over halfway into the show, when Rachel Chinouriri introduced a song she wrote as a teenager at the Brit School, unconvinced she’d ever make it.
But the 26-year-old British singer-songwriter wasn’t crying about the unrequited childhood crush commemorated in its lyrics.
The song — an early hit called So new level of emotion after Chinouriri was nominated for Best New Artist and Artist of the Year at this year’s Brit Awards.
She’s finally getting her flowers, quite literally: after the nominations were announced last month, fellow alumnus Adele sent her an enormous bunch of pastel pink roses.
The heartwarming lore, the intimate 350-capacity venue, the buzzy crowd: would Thursday’s show at London’s Omeara one day become an “I was there” moment?
It certainly felt possible.
If she’s on the cusp of something big, she’s ready for it: a balletic star with the same earnest, self-assured charisma possessed by Adele and Raye.
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This gig took place as part of Brits Week in aid of the charity War Child, a cause that is close to Chinouriri’s heart (her parents were child soldiers in 1970s Zimbabwe).
Watching Chinouriri perform leaves you baffled by the major label executives who constantly attempted to pigeonhole her as soul or RnB — a situation so frustrating she published an open letter about it in 2022.
“Black artistes doing indie is not confusing,” she wrote.
“You see my colour before you hear my music.”
Chinouriri comes from a disgracefully short line of black female indie artists: when she was writing those early songs at school, she might have been inspired by 2000s artistes such as Shingai Shoniwa of rock band Noisettes and VV Brown, and more recently encouraged by the success of Mercury Prize winners English Teacher and their frontwoman Lily Fontaine.
But the list isn’t long.
Live, Chinouriri makes total sense, her songs and voice bigger and punchier than her 2024 debut album What A Devastating Turn of Events would have you believe.
Second song Cold Call crashed open like Gossip’s Standing In The Way Of Control or early Arctic Monkeys.
Widespread head-banging accompanied My Everything, while My Blood evoked the intensity of a Cranberries song and closer Never Need Me, the peppy fun of Olivia Rodrigo.
Chinouriri may have sung quietly while practising at home as a teenager, so as not to annoy her parents: no trace of that on stage at Omeara, where she generated more energy than the room was able to contain.
Chinouriri operates at the poppier end of indie: Dumb B**** Juice and It Is What It Is, the entire room two-stepping to the latter, were welcome nods to Lily Allen’s tongue-in-cheek and very London brand of pop, and Chinouriri will support Sabrina Carpenter on tour next month.
But she truly flourished during squally number The Hills (written during a lonely stint in Los Angeles), yelling “when you don’t belong” into the mic.
She certainly belongs here, a black British artist, uninhibited and brilliant, on stages that are about to get a whole lot bigger.
