Pop powerhouse Rina Sawayama made a very nu-metal call-out to pop music's latest enemy No. 1 over the weekend. During her set at England's Glastonbury fest, Sawayama introduced her nu-metal-infused 2019 single, "STFU!" — aimed at people who make racist microaggressions toward Asian people — by not-so-subtly dissing the 1975 frontman Matty Healy, and then interpolated Korn's "Blind" and Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" into her performance.
"Tonight, this goes out to a white man that watches Ghetto Gaggers and mocks Asian people on a podcast," the John Wick: Chapter 4 star seethed as her bandmates plucked the iconic, foreboding intro of Korn's "Blind." "He also owns my masters. I've had enough!"
Later in the song, Sawayama and her bandmates broke down to a quiet passage, and then built back up with the infamous climax of Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff," offering yet another nu-metal Easter egg to metalheads, and bolstering the anger she felt about "STFU!"'s honorary subject.
The context behind the Healy call-out takes a little bit of explaining. Metalheads might just know Healy as the guy who dubbed Metallica "the worst band of all time" and frequently gets confused with Trivium frontman Matt Heafy. But to the rest of pop culture, he's been a polarizing tabloid figure for over a decade, and now more than ever after he had his brief, controversial fling with Taylor Swift this past spring.
In February of this year, Healy went on the shock-humor podcast the Adam Friedland Show where he made racist jokes about Asian people and admitted that he watched the violent hardcore porn website Ghetto Gaggers, which has been criticized for exploiting and mistreating Black sex workers.
Sawayama and Healy's band the 1975 are both signed to Dirty Hit Records, where Healy was formerly on the board of directors from 2018 to spring 2023, when he reportedly stepped down from that role.
While Healy received some backlash for his comments on the Adam Friedland Show shortly after it aired, it wasn't until rumors began swirling that he and Swift were dating that his comments really became amplified, which led to many impassioned Swifties voicing their disapproval of his foul behavior.
It was essentially the biggest tabloid music story of the moment, and clearly Healy's words struck a chord with his labelmate Sawayama, hence her call-out at Glastonbury.
Watch the nu-metal-laced performance go down below.
omfg i love her pic.twitter.com/DxR1O8rAle
— hev (@HURRICANESRINA) June 24, 2023
Rina Sawayama performando “Break Stuff” do Limp Bizkit no Glastonbury.pic.twitter.com/se3JCuZSyY
— Rina Sawayama Brasil (@rinasawayamabr) June 25, 2023