Interview Get To Know… nabeel (نبيل)
The Arabic indie project that’s building bridges and breaking new ground.
Hello and welcome back to DIY’s introducing feature, Get To Know… which aims to get you a little bit closer to the buzziest acts that have been catching our eye as of late, and working out what makes them tick.
For nabeel (نبيل) - the grunge-flecked, guitar-led project of Yasir Razek - the concept of home is a complicated one, but one which he nevertheless explores with moving insight and marked nuance on his just-dropped EP, ‘ghayoom (غيوم)’ (the title of which translates to ‘clouds’). A deeply personal project that brings together the two halves of his identity as an Iraqi-American immigrant, it combines the sonics of ’90s grunge and shoegaze with Arabic lyrics to create immersive soundscapes that transport you not to Iraq or Richmond, Virginia, but instead to some hazy, heady hybrid space. To mark the EP’s recent release, we caught up with Yasir to discover more about its cross-cultural creation…
What’s your earliest musical memory?
A lot of my earliest musical memories are tied to music videos. Since my brother was eight years older than me, I was always watching MTV with him when I probably shouldn’t have been, haha. But I really remember being struck by the Smashing Pumpkins video for ‘1979’. It felt so fun and free and kind of rebellious watching a bunch of teenagers run around suburban/rural America, rolling down hills in tires and breaking into public swimming pools. I think that really had an impact on me. I was also obsessed with the Michael Jackson ‘Moonwalker’ VHS - I must have watched that at least a hundred times, even though it’s a horrible movie haha.
Who were some artists that inspired you when you were just starting out (and why)?
Even though I’ve played guitar since I was in 7th grade, I really didn’t try writing original music until I was about 28. I had always felt too serious about music to try writing, I think. But in 2018, I fell in love with artists like Alex Cameron, Kirin Callinan and Holiday Sidewinder, who made music feel so free and unserious that it inspired me to begin writing songs. That’s when I started a project with my best friend Travis Legg, called TV Sunset. It was just an over the top, glorious synth-pop project that taught me to take myself less seriously. If it weren’t for that project, I don’t think I ever would have started nabeel. But other major influences were Elliott Smith, Alex G, and other lesser known bands I had often seen touring in Harrisonburg like Sediment Club, Palberta, and Lily Konigsberg.
Your new EP brings together both sides of your identity, acting as a really evocative exploration of the concept of home. Can you tell us a bit more about the project’s personal significance, and what ‘home’ means to you?
I felt from the start of this project that it was acting as a kind of bridge between my identity as an Iraqi and my identity as an indie music kid growing up in Virginia. I wanted to see how those two identities could be held in the same hand, and through that I think my idea of home changed quite a bit. Iraq has never felt fully like home because of how estranged I’ve been from the place, but also the US never felt fully like home either. So I had to rely on my imagination to create an idea of home that exists in a bit of an abstract sense.
Home has become a collection of memories, associations, and feelings that build an internal landscape. Those fragments of self kind of create something new within you, and as you return to it over and over again and build on its vocabulary, it starts to present itself as more real over time.
“Home has become a collection of memories, associations, and feelings that build an internal landscape.”
Your use of Arabic in your work is an implicit reminder of guitar music’s historic homogeneity, and frames the language in a way that, for many Western listeners, might be novel. Was this re-contextualisation something you always set out to achieve? Or more of a happy by-product?
It was definitely something I had always had in mind. I mean, I spent so many years being part of the DIY music scene in Virginia feeling that it wasn’t exactly a place for me to make music. Most of the bands that played and toured in our small town, Harrisonburg, were pretty homogenous, which is why I took to the internet so strongly to try to find examples of Arabic alternative music. But even that felt somewhat lacking, so I felt excited to create something I wasn’t seeing out there that I badly wanted to see.
How have you found people have connected to these tracks, now the whole EP is out in the world? Are there any particular moments or memories which have stuck in your mind?
Oh absolutely. I have started screenshotting messages that mean a lot to me, particularly from diaspora kids or folks living in the Middle East. I think for some it feels healing and unifying to their identities to hear traditionally Western music sung in such a particular dialect of Arabic. Those kinds of messages are so encouraging to read, and really give me inspiration to keep creating.
If people could take away one thing from your music, what would it be?
It would be to always follow your instincts and to do things you want to do / create the things you’d like to see out there in the world. I’ve said it before, but I really hope that it encourages other folks from the Arab world to experiment and create alternative art in whatever way they choose. We’re seeing it a lot more nowadays among the new generation, and it’s so exciting.
Finally, DIY are coming round for dinner - what are you making?
Oooh, I’m making kabob on the grill with some grilled tomato, to be eaten with fresh bread, amba (pickled mango sauce), and hummus. And a little cucumber and tomato salad with lots of mint and lemon juice, haha.
ghayoom (غيوم) is out now.
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