PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Portland rapper Sina Wynne Holwerda may look different from other Oregon artists like Aminé and Yeat, who rose to fame after making a name for themselves in the state, but the appeal of the 25-year-old is that she isn’t trying to be anyone but herself.
The rapper, who goes by her middle name Wynne, is originally from the suburb of Lake Oswego. She says she’s been rapping since she was just 9 years old when her older brother was introducing her to artists such as Lupe Fiasco, Eminem and Jay Z.
Her days of listening to rap on her MP3 player are over, but she carried her love of the genre well into her adulthood.
“I always say hip hop is kind of like an outcast art form; it gives people a voice, gives them a way to express themselves like poetry,” Wynne said. “And it gave me a lot of confidence as a kid. I just didn’t really fit in, so hip hop was like my only friend. I could kind of put all my time into it and study it and be able to tell my own story through that.”
Many people were introduced to Wynne in 2017, when a video of her freestyling over the instrumental to 21 Savage’s “Bank Account” went viral on social media, garnering over 35,000 retweets. She says the attention did put her in a position to be successful, but she chose to focus on finishing school at the University of Oregon.
“Now… I’m trying to be a mainstream stay,” she said. “I’ve grown up and I’ve just learned to be more confident and accept myself. I think me and my right hand, Ty, we’ve done a lot of artist development over the years of learning what I do best and my strengths and my weaknesses and trying to sharpen up the weaknesses.”
According to Wynne, one of those weaknesses was her lack of confidence in her voice. She says that many of the artists that inspired her growing up were men with low, aggressive voices and she found herself trying to emulate that. Now, she’s leaned into the soft, sultry voice she’s developed as a grown woman.
Wynne’s first project If I May.. was a success, with established artists like JID and Mahalia featured on the project. It even landed her a spot on tour with EarthGang in 2020, although the pandemic hit soon after.
The artist says she still loves If I May.. for what it is and believes it’s an incredible project. But, according to Wynne, her next few releases are more representative of what she’s experienced since then.
As a woman in hip hop, Wynne simply wants people to respect what she does even if they don’t necessarily listen to her music. But as a white person in a predominantly Black genre, she says she’s always conscious of her position in the industry and chooses to remain her authentic self.
Her next single, titled “Jaw Morant,” will show a more playful side of her authentic self. She’s premiering the track at Two Wrongs bar in Portland’s Pearl District on Friday, April 7 at 9 p.m.
“It’s a club banger for sure,” Wynne said of the new song. “I don’t feel like I have enough music in my catalogue that people can put on at a party or put on when they’re drinking with their girls, and I wanted to have those kinds of records so this is definitely that.”
She also plans on dropping two complementary EPs this year, one in the summer and one during the transition into fall.