On "The Other Girl," Shriya Rao Writes Her Way Out of Being the Other Woman

Shriya Rao's new EP takes its title from a role nobody wants to play, The Other Girl. Out September 11, written entirely by the 20-year-old Mumbai singer-songwriter, follows what happens when you fall for someone, realize you're not the only one in their life, and have to figure out what to do with that knowledge. Across the four songs, that's essentially the story: falling for someone, not being able to resist it, realizing you're not the only one, and slowly figuring out how to get yourself out of it. 

"I think it's actually the release that just feels so good," Rao said of writing it. "Once you write about something, it's almost like you're letting it go in a way and you're moving on." She's been careful about where the tracks point their anger - at the situation, rather than at the other woman.

Photo: Courtesy of the Artist

That shows up in the smallest places on the record. Near the end of "Chasing Lies," Rao's voice slips out of the mix for a second, off-mic and half to herself, before she goes for a note. It's a warm-up mutter, the kind of thing that gets cut but her producers left it in - a small, almost accidental detail, and the only moment on the EP where the doubt the songs are built around actually sounds like doubt.

The first two songs work close enough to the same idea that they risk blurring together - both are about someone who only shows up when it's convenient for them, and both lean on lyrics familiar enough to R&B. "Resist It" leans on harmonies to get past that, built around the line "you call me only when you want me." "Chasing Lies" leans on vocal arrangement instead - Rao's voice layered around itself until the hook, "we're out here chasing lies," starts to sound like something she's figured out mid-song. The writing on both songs is still working through familiar territory; the performance is what's already found its footing.

"Closure," featuring Meba Ofilia, is the pivot, mostly because the two voices actually blend rather than trade verses politely, which matters on a song that's explicitly about confronting somebody rather than mourning him. Getting Ofilia on the track wasn't the plan going in; by Rao's account, it happened after a show where Ofilia recognized her on sight and asked to write a verse herself. It's also Rao's first production credit, which tracks - the record's angriest, clearest song is also the one where she isn't carrying it alone anymore, on either side of the mic. The writing gets sharper here too, trading the earlier songs' ache for something closer to an actual confrontation.

Photo: Courtesy of the Artist

"Afterthought" undoes almost everything sonically - piano, synth, strings, a ballad with no resemblance to her usual R&B. It's a swerve, and it could easily have read as the EP running out of ideas for its own ending. Instead it lands because the instrumentation isn't random: Rao started on piano before she started writing songs at all, encouraged by a father she grew up hearing sing, and the closing track returns to that starting point right as the record's emotional arc does the same thing. The line that carries it is "falling for you, but landing on my feet" - the only lyric on the EP that sounds like relief rather than argument.

Across the four songs, the writing tightens as the EP moves forward, the vague ache of the opening tracks giving way to the specificity of "Closure" and the calm of "Afterthought." That mirrors the difference between still being inside something and having gotten some distance from it. This EP works best alone, headphones in - somewhere quiet enough to actually sit with it instead of just having it on in the background.

Rao's had a fast year around this EP. She played her first festival main stage in March, at NH7 Weekender in Pune, and has described walking out to it as feeling "so small but in the best way" - vanity mirrors and security in a city where she says she never expected to see either. She's carrying that momentum into her first India tour, with stops including Mumbai, Delhi, Shillong and Pune, and then into a Lollapalooza India debut in 2027, where she'll share the bill with Olivia Dean and KATSEYE.