Rina Sawayama calls out Sabrina Carpenter’s SNL performance of Nobody’s Son for cultural insensitivity
Sabrina Carpenter was the latest artist to take to SNL’s stage this past weekend, where she performed two of her hits under a Japanese-inspired backdrop. Following the sketch, British-Japanese singer Rina Sawayama took to Instagram to urge artists and creative teams to do more research if they are referencing a specific culture, after highlighting some issues with the show.
Carpenter performed two tracks from her new album, Man’s Best Friend—“Manchild” and “Nobody’s Son.” During the latter performance in front of a dojo-styled stage set, she wore a gem-adorned, sparkling karate gi, with her backup dancers and singers wearing similar outfits.
Rina Sawayama calls out Sabrina Carpenter’s SNL performance for cultural insensitivity
Taking to Instagram stories after Carpenter’s SNL performance, Sawayama posted the sketch and wrote: “Big love to Sabrina, but fellow artists, creative teams… if we are clearly referencing a culture, please can you do so with the research, respect, and care it deserves. Shoes on tatami is jail.”
In Japanese culture, according to Japan Guide, tatami mats are “thick, woven straw mats that measure about one by two meters in size” and are found in “virtually all traditional Japanese homes.” It adds that footwear, even slippers, should be removed before stepping onto the tatami, but the backup dancers in Carpenter’s karate-inspired set all seemed to be wearing fresh trainers.
So the SNL performance ignored this key element of Japanese culture by allowing the dancers to perform on the set in their footwear. With a little bit of research, this could have been easily avoided. It literally took around one minute to find a definition of tatami mats and a guide to their use. Lazy research leads to mistakes such as the one Sawayama pointed out.
Rina Sawayama previously called out Matty Healy for microaggressions
This isn’t the first time Sawayama has publicly mentioned artists for missteps. At her Glastonbury set in 2023, while introducing her song “STFU!” over a Korn riff, she called out 1975’s Matty Healy for microaggressions.
“I wrote this next song because I was sick and tired of these microaggressions,” she said. “This goes out to a white man who watches Ghetto Gaggers and mocks Asian people on a podcast. He also owns my masters. I’ve had enough.”
