Mina Okabe - Better Days (2021) Hi-Res

Born in London, and now living in Copenhagen, twenty-year-old Mina Okabe dropped her debut single I’m Done this week and it is, like its singer and creator herself, a worldly and captivating affair. Okabe, who is Danish-Japanese, has already spent time living in New York and Manila, as well as her homeland, and there is an assured and wise feeling to the song that perhaps comes from her considerable life experience, despite her young age.

Okabe says that she writes “songs about personal experiences and feelings”. It’s a sentiment that is born out in the track itself – on the face of it, it is a simple break up song, but the narrative Okabe weaves is more mesmerising than that, alluding to emotions of regret and loss.

Okabe achieves this through her remarkably real lyrics. The song’s opening verses, where she sings: “You should know that I am done thinking / About you, about you / Written enough songs and thought too much / Don't want to, don't want to / I’m tired of this repeating / It goes on, on and on / I tell myself this is ending / Cause I'm done, now I'm done” draw you into the interior of the creation.