In Conversation: Nabihah Iqbal
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Music
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IN CONVERSATION: NABIHAH IQBAL
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Words by Luc Hinson
Artwork by Tom Shotton
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Luc Hinson sat down with the talented and multi-faceted Nabihah Iqbal. We talked through her South-Asian roots, her career as a Human Rights Lawyer and the continual journey of self-discovery. Nabihah is playing later on the month in Morocco at The Beat Hotel Marrakech. You can read our full interview below.
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BB: Nabihah, you’re an immensely talented and multi-faceted human being, tell us about your journey from lawyer to Throwing Shade to Nabihah Iqbal?
NI: Well I guess the lawyer thing was just me trying to do a proper job. I was really interested in it and I enjoyed studying law and working in Human Rights for a while, I thought that was going to be my life trajectory. Then, music just took over in a very unexpected and out of control way. I feel like it was some higher force pulling me in that direction. It's always been my favourite thing in my whole life and I’ve always done music whatever else i’m doing. Growing up whether it was learning instruments or music production and djing whilst I was at Uni and then obviously I studied ethnomusicology as an undergrad. I just never expected to do it full time, I guess that's part of coming from a family with asian parents wanting all their kids to be doctors or lawyers.
I started focusing on music full time at the end of 2013. I got offered my show on NTS and my first record came out on…. Then I was getting more and more gigs and it felt like a dream, so I thought whatever, I’m going to concentrate on it, and so far so good. Throwing shade was a moniker I just picked when I was just djing at parties that me and my friends would organise around London, which I started doing in my masters year, from around 2009 onwards. My DJ sets were just really popular. I had a group of friends that put on Parties in Launderettes around London, which was quite cool, we’d just rent a launderette off whoever the owner was for a night. The owners were always a bit perplexed, they didn't really understand what was going on, but that was where I started djing. At the time when i picked throwing shade I had no idea I’d end up focusing on music and it being my whole life.
The transition from that to Nabihah Iqbal - to using my own name, was something that I was thinking about for quite a while. It wasn't an overnight decision. It was product of a lot of decisions and triggers, and thinking a lot more about who I am, and identity and representation and the fact that as a South Asian woman, when look at mainstream music I didn’t see anybody of that background, the only two I can think of are Zayn Malik and MIA. In the electronic dj scene there's just no one so I thought it was important to represent. I would get more and more messages of support from ethnic minority fans saying that they really appreciated what i’m doing, I think that's what made me realise it might be part of a bigger thing, more than just me.
BB: What was your family life like growing up?
NI: It was cool, my parents just wanted me and my sisters to do as much as possible. They pushed us really hard in terms of education, going to good schools and unis. They encouraged us to do as much sport and music as we could. They just worked really hard to give us the best that they could.
BB: Do you think there’s any duality between being South-Asian and British, are they conflicting identities?
NI: It depends on every individuals experience. I think there's no one way to grow up as a South Asian in Britain. I grew up in central london with a family who were more bothered with education than anything else. For other Pakistani girls who were growing up in Bradford, or Birmingham or somewhere else and in a family that’s much more conservative they would have a much more different definition of what growing up in Britain as a South Asian is. I think the most important thing we need to do is realise that there are nuances, and not just one way of being. I think that gets missed, especially with the South Asian population.
BB: Is your identity consciously reflected in your music?
NI: Yeah definitely, I think when anyone works in any sort of creative field where you're projecting yourself into the art that you make, it’s definitely a part of you. Sometimes that connection can be very subliminal. Sometimes as the artist or musician you can't really work out what the connection is but you know it's you. When people ask you about it it's hard to explain but you just know it’s you.
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" IT'S A BEAUTIFUL TERM, IT'S BASICALLY A PATCHWORK, YOU'LL HAVE YOUR IDEA OF BRITISHNESS, I'LL HAVE MY OWN AND THE QUEEN WILL HAVE HERS AND THEY'LL ALL BE REALLY DIFFERENT BUT THEY'RE ALL BRITISH"
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BB: what are the main influences on your sound, and what's your creative process like?
NI: The way that I work, I feel that one of things, the motif, that runs through all my work is the desire to create sonic textures. That's a theme that runs through my music and is quite indicative of my style. I really like working with a lot of layers. In every song and sound there's an emotion, there's meaning. I quite like making sounds that make people think a bit more. A soundscape that you can get into and then just lose yourself in it, however it makes you feel. One of the main responses I got from people when the album came out was that it was making people think about things they hadn't thought about in a long time. The other reaction was that it was making people cry, hopefully not in a bad way. So obviously it was touching something kind of deep. One gig I played a girl in the crowd actually started crying half way through the performance. She came and talked to me afterwards about it and said it was a really strong experience for her. When I see that response I feel like “okay i'm accomplishing what I want to do in terms of the music”. The worst thing you can do when you make music is that someone would listen to a song and forget about it two minutes later.
BB: what do you want to get out of music?
NI: From a consumption point, music is the most important thing in the world, and it's something we don't fully understand and the power of it is so great. It manifests itself in so many different ways, sometimes it will be an individual experience of walking down the street, and listening with headphones and you feel in the zone and invincible or emotional, you're just in your own world. Or it could be the collective experience of being at a festival or club, you're all sharing the same musical experience, together you're standing there with loads of strangers and you're all connected. You can look at it from another context as well, where music is for healing or spirituality. There’s so much to get out of it. I think the main thing is to be open minded and relaxed, and let yourself absorb different sounds and ideas and see where it takes you.
I guess from making music, you're just trying to channel something. It's about channeling things, im working on new music right now and a lot of the ideas I have about it are based on feelings and things i've been thinking about more recently. I'm really excited about what it's going to sound like.
BB: What’s been your favourite collaboratory project thus far?
NI: The one that comes into my head straight away is collaborating with Wolfgang Tillmans at his Tate Modern exhibition and performing in the Tate tanks. That was a really special show for me, Wolfgang did all the visuals, it was so, so cool. I was really nervous because the Tate tanks are such a huge space, and it's that kind of art audience as well where everyone is super silent and still and all just focusing on you. You don't have that normal background activity in a bar where people are chatting. That was really really cool.
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BB: How do you think we can increase equality in music, how can we move from pigeon holing minorities on minority stages, to an equal playing field?
NI: I think things are definitely getting better and moving in the right direction. The key to it is greater understanding and education, the more you understand about each other the more you'll accept each other as you'll get closer to the realisation that there's not much difference between us, Regardless of what we look like whether that's to do with race or gender. I feel like young people are a lot more aware of it so i feel like it will only get better. There's definitely still tokenism that exists and a lot of prejudices, but these are lal things that will never change overnight. Even when i think about when i first started djing and when i first started my show on NTS and how many females there were with shows on the station or djing around London and it wa hardly anything compared to now. I feel like the internet has really levelled the playing field for everyone. Because everyone and everything is more accessible.
BB: What does home mean to you?
NI: London, definitely. Because i'm born and bred, when i think of home i think of this city, obviously home in the nuclear sense of being with your family and stuff I think the idea of home goes further than that. The place where you feel the most at ease and happy. I just love this place so much. Still whenever i've been away or in nature i just always get this feeling when i come back, whether its just driving back or coming to the airport, i alway thought it would wear off but it hasn't. Even though you've been somewhere that's hot and sunny, and you come back and its grey and rainy but it feels good.
BB: What’s the first thing that comes into your head when i say Britishness?
NI: Just the fact that Britishness is something really special, there are so many definitions of it, that's the beauty of this country that we live in that its very multicultural. I'm just going to base my definition off of what i know which is London which is one of the most multicultural cities in the world. I think Britishness is a term that is very personal, everyone has their own personal definition of what Britishness is, there's no one overall thing and when people try and project their own opinion of what britishness is, i don't agree with that, that's when you get brexit. It's a beautiful term, it's basically a patchwork, You'll have your idea of Britishness, I'll have my own and the Queen will have hers and they'll all be really different but they're all British even though the reason why this country is really multicultural is the colonial heritage, i'm so thankful to live in a place with so many people from around the world, im thankful for that, it's the silver lining to the grey cloud.
BB: We see you’ll be playing The Beat Hotel in Marrakech this March, how different is the festival experience abroad to in the UK?
NI: it just varies from festival to festival, for me it's quite exciting to play in a new country i haven't played in Morocco before. For anyone who's grown up in a country where they don't really fit in with the status quo, and you go and play in a place where the crowd look more like you, I've only experienced that once - last year i went and played in Bahrain for the first time, it really struck me i'd never thought of it before. When you play somewhere where most of the people come from a similar background to you and they come up to talk to you about it afterward sit feels really good, that's an experience i hope gets repeated in other places. It's really exciting to travel around and play music to different crowds in different countries and see how they respond, sometimes you're pushing the boundaries a bit, if i went to The Beat hotel in Marrakech and played a UK garage set, i don't know how it would go down but its broadening people's horizons and i really enjoy that
BB: What are you hoping to achieve in 2019?
NI: 2018 was just touring the whole year which was crazy but amazing, that's what you always want to do after you release a record. Now i’m just working on new music that's my number one priority at the moment the aim is to finish the next record and get it out at some point in this year and see what happens after that…
Twitter: @nabihahiqbal
Instagram: @nabihahiqbal
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