Nabihah Iqbal
Journeys In Sound
Music has the ability to not only move us emotionally but geographically. Have you ever heard a song or piece of music that has stopped you in your tracks and transported you back to a specific place or journey? That is the experience Nabihah Iqbal wants to inspire through the programme she presents on BBC 6 Music. Lose Yourself is a two-hour exploration of music and field recordings selected and created by Nabihah that take you on a journey to Pakistan, Japan, Indonesia, Turkey, Sierra Leone and everywhere in between.
Tahmina Begum spoke to Nabihah about her approach to playing, making and recording music and the mesmerising sounds of her motherland, Pakistan.
First of all, I want to know which song is currently moving you, both soulfully and physically?
Probably Grace by Jeff Buckley. I’m rediscovering this album and it’s on repeat. I’m paying more attention to how he was as a singer, a lyricist and guitarist as well as his influences. I’m in a totally different place compared to when I first started listening to his music as a teenager on my Discman, which was pre-internet and pre-Youtube times.
What were you listening to as a teenager and what were you seeking out?
My first musical obsession was Michael Jackson. But if I’m talking about buying music myself, my first album was Definitely Maybe by Oasis and they were my favourites for a long time. At that time, I was into Indie Brit-Pop music and as I got older, when I was 13, I got into punk and metal so it was definitely always alternative.
You’re one of the hosts for 6 Music’s Lose Yourself. The two-hour weekly series that allows people to dream outside of their own homes in the absence of travel. What are the intentions behind what you’re trying to curate?
The production company who was working on the show already knew my work and got in touch and asked me to be one of the presenters. It was that day that I’d literally been through all my field recordings on my Itunes. Whenever I travel, I really like making film recordings and I was thinking I really want to do something with all of those.
For me, it’s a great opportunity to play music all around the world and I don’t want to be boxed in by genres. If you’re a real lover of music, you’ll be open-minded and embrace all of it and let all of it speak to you. That’s the premise behind this, it’s letting the music guide you and every show I try to curate an hour’s worth of music and field recordings that are carefully put together that feels like you’re going on a journey.
I definitely feel that. While listening to the first episode throughout the day, there’s a theme of ease and light and joy. Have you always felt this connection between music transporting you to elsewhere?
Studying ethnomusicology at SOAS was a really important experience for me in terms of just my general musical education in my life. Listening to a lot of different field recordings that people had made of musical styles all around the world was a part of that degree because obviously, not all music can be recorded in a studio. Sometimes you just have to go there with the recording equipment. It just really appealed to me because I feel like making field recordings can be as evocative of memories and feelings as a photograph.
So when I go back to all my recordings and listen to things that I'd made four or five years ago, it takes me right back to that place. Wherever I go, I always kind of like to keep an ear out and try and record things. Even last week, I woke up super early, at like 4:30 am, and it was raining. At that time of the morning, everything is so still and quiet but there was a blackbird singing, you could hear this rain and birdsong so I got out of bed to make a recording of it.
I feel like music has a way of transporting us. Is there a country around the world that you connect to musically and is a form of escapism?
Gamelan music from Indonesia is one of my favourite types of music. I back-packed through Indonesia for the first time in 2019 so that was quite exciting for me but also going back to Pakistan, which is where my family is from, that's a culture that's so intertwined with different music. I really love going back there and just like trying to absorb as much music as I can from the motherland. Another place that has stood out to me in terms of their music was Istanbul. This was the city where music felt like it was running through the veins of that city. It was just amazing musicians and buskers and record stores and there's just music everywhere. It was great.
How does your heritage link with your music tastes of today?
It feels like I'm in a quite lucky position because even though I’m a Londoner, born and bred and this is like my homeland, I also have a Motherland, which is Pakistan. And I feel equally connected to that side of my heritage as well. So it feels good to have two massive pools that you can dip your toes into.
Your identity, your heritage and culture, are things you really start to think about properly when become older — well it was for me — and now, every time I go back to Pakistan, I love it. And I just want to immerse myself in the culture there and find out as much as I can about it, and whether that’s music or anything else, and then think about how it shapes me and how, I don't know, does it lead me somewhere?
What does your version of Pakistan sound like?
Whenever I visit Pakistan, I go to Karachi because that's where my grandparents are and I stay with them. Karachi is the biggest city in Pakistan and it's hectic. So the first thing that I'd say in terms of setting the scene is that it's really noisy. Luckily, where my grandparents live is a chilled area. But if you go into the main city centre, it's just crazy with all the traffic and all the people everywhere. But I think that one of the things that strikes me the most is the birdsong because it's so loud. The climate and, and the geographical position means that there are just way more birds there than you'll ever find in London.
And you get woken up by the dawn chorus because it's that loud. There are so many different and so many more different types of birds so I feel like I'm always really paying attention to all the different types of birdsong that you hear. And then the morning birds versus the evening bird songs are totally different. I love listening to that and making recordings of it.
Then you have all the other sounds as well, like the street vendors calling out. You hear a lot of car engines like motorbikes as well as snake charmers. Then obviously, it's a Muslim country. So you hear the call to prayer five times a day. I love hearing that whenever I'm in a Muslim country because it's such a special experience where you're in a massive city with millions of people. At one exact time, there’s an azaan in every single mosque, reciting the call to prayer through loudspeakers, all at the same time, and you can just hear it across the city. And it's really special.
I always think it's really special and something I’ve experienced in Bangladesh because there’s an echo due to the second delay between all the different mosques. It sends shivers down my spine because I also think it's such a humbling experience — we're also busy and distracted by our lives and then there’s that collective call to prayer. Even if you don't go to pray, you’re reminded of a bigger idea or purpose.
And it's also really impressive as well. It's not a recording, it's someone doing it live and it's a really, really difficult thing to be able to do properly and to do it well. I haven’t been to Bangladesh but I’d like to hear what it sounds like there. I've noticed, in all the Muslim countries that I've visited, from Pakistan to Dubai, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, or Sierra Leone, they’re slightly different, in their own style and accents. It’s cool.
What does the music scene among young Pakistani creatives in Pakistan look like?
Usually, my whole trip revolves around family and seeing my grandparents but the last time I got to visit Karachi, I managed to meet some people who run a really cool radio station, and different musicians and DJs. There’s so much stuff going on. You know, it’s such a vibrant, huge country with a massive population with such a rich culture and history so I hope when the world gets back to normal soon, young Pakistani creatives find a way of sharing their sound with the world soon.
When we think of artists of South Asian descent, many of us immediately envision Bollywood or Bhangra. Are South Asian musicians being overlooked?
I don’t think overlooked is the right word. It's more that we’re not being looked at, at all. It’s very easy to just be lazy and to just categorise a person's sound. Or make assumptions about a person's sound or creative output just based on how they look and what their name is and that's the thing that I find most frustrating being a South Asian female, trying to navigate the UK music industry.
And in a city like London, where there are so many different types of people, and there are so many different types of communities who've been here for hundreds of years, we really need to move past that.
When I first started doing music, I didn’t use my real name. I was using this alias and moniker I picked up from DJing. I was just on the side of university and was never planning to do music as a full-time career. But then when I made the conscious decision that I wanted to use my real name, it was because of all of these things that I've just been talking about. Trying to be upfront with who I am and my identity and thinking about the fact like you never hear any artists with Muslim or let alone, foreign-sounding names being played on mainstream radio.
[Many of us] have our own inhibitions about our own names because you grow up conditioned to be like, “Oh yeah my name is a funny name, that’s too difficult to say” and it’s just not true.
And I love seeing your name. Iqbal, to me, is unapologetically South Asian and Muslim. I’m seeing more women of colour take up space in music where it’s about their values first as an artist. What has the experience been like to watch this on the front lines?
It's amazing really because I even compare it to when I first joined NTS and that was 2013 and my first record Throwing Shade in 2014, in that time and space, so much has changed. It's great to see so many more like young, Asian and other ethnic minority artists and DJs coming through and the fact that the internet and these platforms make everything a lot more egalitarian because now you kind of buy it, you can basically like bypass the whole music industry structure and just create your own fan base because people like what you do and follow you.
The industry has to pay attention because this rapper or DJ has got millions of followers and listens. It’s nice to see the momentum that people can create for themselves in their communities online and the fact that we can't be ignored anymore.
Which artists that are also Black and brown women are you listening to right now?
I’m listening to Niyana Iz a lot at the moment. She’s from an Indian background in London I believe. Also, Fejiana, who is a part of the Indian diaspora in Fiji which I didn’t really know about which is cool. Also, Raveena Aurora, who is a great singer. Arooj Aftab, the composer is really cool. I’m listening to loads of female and South Asian artists like Joy Crookes who's doing really well and Anoushka Shankar who’s the OG and I got to play at her festival last week in London. There’s so many and I only know the tip of the iceberg.
What are you recording right now?
The biggest thing I'm trying to do is write my second album, which is proving quite difficult because they’ve been lots of obstacles in my life and it’s really frustrating. But I've actually set aside the whole of August to just work on music and I'm actually really excited about that. I've just been working every day in my studio, which is in Somerset House, where I'm an artist in residence. And then carrying on with this BBC 6 Lose Yourself series. Gigs are starting to come back so I’m looking forward to a mixture of real-life gigs and DJ sets.
I’m in a really different place making this album in comparison to when I was doing the first album. Even though at the time, that was the hardest thing I've ever done. Now I’m thinking about lots of different things at the same time while also looking introspectively: what am I trying to convey with my music? What am I trying to say?
I never usually do this but one of my artist friends gave me some advice that sat with me that you have to set aside a certain amount of time for your work or when will it get done? So hopefully, August will be a creative month for me and then I'll see how it goes. I just need to make enough money so I can build a little music studio for myself in the countryside because that would just be perfect. Then whenever I need to do music, I’d be like, “I’m off”.