Mina Okabe Opens A New Chapter With "It's A New Day"

With more than 500 million streams to her name and a growing audience stretching from Scandinavia to Asia, Mina Okabe has quietly established herself as one of Denmark’s most internationally successful new pop artists. Now, following the release of her second album Papaya, the Danish-Japanese artist is ready to turn the page once again.

LISTEN TO "IT'S A NEW DAY"

On October 23rd, Mina Okabe releases ’It’s A New Day’ which is the first single from her forthcoming third album and the beginning of a new musical chapter that sees her stepping beyond the dreamy, singer-songwriter-driven pop that has defined much of her career so far.

Since releasing her debut single in 2020, Mina’s understated and deeply personal songwriting has found an audience far beyond her home country. Her debut album Better Days went on to become 4× Platinum in Korea, while her international breakthrough has brought recognition from both Spotify and Apple Music, who named her a RADAR artist and “One to Watch”, respectively. In 2024, her growing presence in Asia was further cemented when she was named “New Artist of the Year” at the Japan Gold Disc Awards.

Along the way, Mina has taken her music to stages around the world, performing at festivals including Roskilde Festival in Denmark, Seoul Jazz Festival in Korea and Summer Sonic in Japan. Her second album, Papaya, continued that international journey, created between Copenhagen, London and Los Angeles alongside multi-platinum producer Leroy Clampitt.

But after two albums built around the musical identity she had envisioned for herself from the beginning, Mina found herself wanting to let go of those expectations.

“After making and releasing my first two albums, I felt ready to experiment. I started asking myself what would happen if I let go of how I think I should sound. I knew from the very beginning of this process that I wanted to try using my voice in different ways, and I found myself being drawn to new ways of describing situations and emotions,” Mina says

While Mina has previously described her songs as diary entries, the music she is making now draws more closely from the conversations she has with friends – from embarrassing stories after a night out to emotional discussions about life and the future. At the same time, a new set of musical references has entered her world. Rock, folk and indie pop have increasingly found their way into her musical universe, with artists including Joni Mitchell, HAIM, Alvvays and The Velvet Underground inspiring the direction of the new material.

The first taste of that evolution arrives with ’It’s A New Day’. Bright and immediate on the surface, the song carries something more bittersweet underneath. Its playful melodies stand in contrast to lyrics about trying everything to escape a difficult headspace – and discovering that sometimes the only way forward is to give yourself time.

"It’s A New Day is about trying all sorts of ways to get out of a bad headspace but not being very successful at it. I think the overall message is about practising patience and going easy on yourself. It sounds like a happy song, but if you listen carefully to the lyrics, it’s pretty sad. The ending does have some words of encouragement though” Mina explains.

That tension between light and dark, playful melodies paired with more complicated emotions is also an early indication of the world Mina is building around her third album.

“I’m so happy to have this song be the first single from the coming album, because I think the sarcasm in the lyrics and the playfulness in the melodies and production give a good introduction to what’s to come.”

’It’s A New Day’ was written by Mina alongside Nick Madsen and Mads Koch, reconnecting her with two collaborators who helped shape several songs on her debut album ’Better Days’. Having spent time apart creatively, the three returned to the studio with new perspectives to bring into the process.

The song itself came together differently from Mina’s usual way of writing. Rather than sitting down with a guitar or piano and finding the foundation of the song in one session, the trio continued pulling it apart and putting it back together over several days, creating multiple versions along the way.

“It felt like a puzzle we were trying to solve. It has been really fun to challenge myself with different ways of writing and to be okay with the process taking time,” Mina says.

The experimentation behind ’It’s A New Day’ points towards a wider evolution on Mina’s forthcoming third album. Where ’Better Days’ and ’Papaya’ captured her experiences in her early twenties, the next chapter finds her in a different place – personally and creatively – with new stories to tell and fewer preconceived ideas about how they should sound.

The honesty that has always sat at the heart of Mina Okabe’s music remains. This time, however, she is allowing herself to be more playful with it. In her own three words, the new chapter is playful, honest and emotional.