BINA. Confronts What's Hidden On 'R U OK?' Featuring Tkay Maidza

The single lands ahead of forthcoming mixtape 'SOFT RAGE', out 6th November.

BINA. has released her new single 'R U OK?' featuring LA-based, Australia-raised Tkay Maidza, out now via Platoon. The track follows the announcement of her forthcoming mixtape, 'SOFT RAGE', due 6th November.

Produced by BluPrint and steeped in the trip-hop of Massive Attack and Portishead, 'R U OK?' sets the emotional register for what's to come, digging into suppression, and the instinct to mask what's really going on internally just to make everyday life easier to carry. The accompanying NIYADRE-directed visuals draw on Elaine Kraf's novel The Princess of West 72nd Street, threading its depiction of manic episodes together with BINA.'s own experience of anxiety and intrusive thought. "It was important to me that a song like this exist on my tape and my discography because I wanted to let feelings that I often hide and manage alone roam free," she says, "in hopes they'd become less scary to me because they've been captured in a song, like a moth in a jar."

The phrase "soft rage" has been part of BINA.'s vocabulary for a while now, tracing back to 'Dopamine' from her previous project 'Chaos Is Her Name'. On the new mixtape, she pushes further into indie, rock and punk territory, trading in grungy textures and layered live instrumentation, all in service of a record built around reclaiming anger as something that doesn't need to be hidden or apologised for.

It's the next chapter for an artist who's spent the past few years quietly building one of UK music's most distinctive discographies, from 2019 debut EP 'Humble Abode 'through to the 20-million-stream breakthrough of 'Chaos Is Her Name', with co-signs along the way from Kojey Radical, Amaarae and Joy Crookes. BINA. has built out a parallel life as a visual artist, DJ and model, and toured with Little Simz, Hope Tala and Yazmin Lacey over the past year.