The term polymath gets thrown around a bit too readily these days, but with Nabihah Iqbal – musician, DJ, producer, broadcaster, curator, lecturer, sound artist – it seems more than fitting. And in her guise as one, some, or all of those, she spends a lot of time on the move, whether that’s on the coast guest directing this year’s Brighton Festival, in the outskirts of Karachi shooting music videos, or DJing in verdant corners of Cape Town.
Back at home in London, Nabihah is an artist-in-residence at Somerset House where she’s been rehearsing for her first US tour, in support of upcoming second album Dreamer, and preparing for a series of Friday night DJ slots on BBC 6Music. We called in with a few questions…
Quote to live by
Be grateful for everything you have. When you’re grateful then it motivates you to do stuff (hopefully).
Favourite museum/gallery
Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Tasmania. It’s built inside a giant cliff by a maths genius who came from quite a poor background but worked out an algorithm to win loads of money gambling. Then he spent it building this incredible gallery and the only way you can reach it is by boat. The whole experience from start to finish is insane. [Ed’s note: you can even stay there]
The other thing that really stuck in my mind was the way it was curated – it’s not done across geographical or historical lines so there’s a lot of juxtaposition between objects from totally different parts of the world and totally different parts of history.
Book that shaped you
The best book I’ve ever read, and has definitely shaped music on the new album, is Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. I can’t stop thinking about it. Even though it was written in the Victorian era, it feels really relevant today. As a female I think you can identify with a lot of the ideas in it quite deeply. And Hardy’s descriptions of nature are so vivid – one thing I do love about England is the countryside, and the way he’ll spend a whole chapter describing walking through a wood in autumn is just so evocative.
Favourite artist
Jean-Michel Basquiat. His paintings are the only paintings that have made me cry when I look at them. I went to visit his grave in New York and I just wish I could’ve met him. I always wonder what he must have felt like as the only artist of colour on a level with all the 20th century greats. The way his life ended is so sad and I always think about what was he feeling right towards the end – when you look at his final self-portraits they’re just so dark in a moving way.
Accent/language that turns you on
German! I love it. I learnt it a bit at school; it’s my favourite language. German men speaking English with a German accent: it’s hot.
Favourite café
Kaffeine on Great Titchfield Street is tried and tested. It’s not too far from my house, the coffee is really good and the food’s always great.
Comfort food
Pizza. Actually me and two of my friends have this special group ‘project’ where we go around all the pizza spots in London and rate them. We have a shared note on our phones where we put in all the ratings and photos of everywhere. There’s a league table, so now I can never really eat pizza in a relaxed way because I’m always thinking about it. Number one is Oi Vita in Newington Green – it’s the best pizza here. And has the best garlic bread you’ll ever eat in your life.
Most memorable meal
When I was in Shanghai for a gig, the people that were hosting me took me to this vegetarian restaurant. It was amazing because vegetarian food is kind of difficult to find in China, but everything was just incredible – I was eating vegetables I’d never even seen before because they only grow locally so it was really quite an exciting meal to try all these new things.
And it was the most poetic dessert I’ve ever eaten in my life – it was a clear sweet soup made from the resin of a peach tree which had congealed bits of resin that looked like amber in it and petals on top. I didn’t even want to eat it, it looked so beautiful! That stayed in my mind.
Best vintage/antique find
A harmonium which I found in an old music shop in the centre of Karachi. It’s just made really well, with these amazing pearly keys. It’s beautiful, it’s functional and it makes a nice sound.
Architecture that awes you
In London I really appreciate all the different eras of architecture but I do really love Bruatlist things. Erno Goldfinger is a really cool architect. I live in West London so I always see the Trellick Tower and love that it’s there. I went to visit his house in Hampstead and it was amazing to see how one of the most important Brutalist architects had created his own living space.
Interiors you envy
I was in Pakistan a few weeks ago and went to this old haveli and it was definitely the most beautiful house I’d ever seen. You go in and think ‘This is the aesthetic everyone is striving for’ but it’s the real thing. It’s 700 years old with the most beautiful courtyard, with stained glass, old wooden pergolas, and hundreds of plants and flowers and birds in the trees. I kept thinking: ‘Imagine waking up to this every day!’
And because I’m Pakistani I think it would be really nice to try and recreate some of that at home – the hand-carved wood, the attention to detail, the way things are made to look really beautiful and not just functional.
Souvenirs you hunt while travelling
I travel so much and my flat is small so I’m pretty strict about buying souvenirs. But I do try to find local record stores and buy some local music from that country. It’s nice because then I’ll bring the music back and it’ll remind me of the trip, and I can share it on the radio and play it out at gigs.
Design decade you feel at home in
I love minimalist Sixties design. I love going to Alfie’s antique market round the corner from my house and just looking at all the furniture, salivating and inventing my dream house in my head.
But then I also love places like Leighton House which is this real London hidden gem, in Holland Park, which was the home of the painter Frederic Leighton. It’s really OTT Victoriana; paintings everywhere with a beautiful tiled courtyard (he was obsessed with Middle Eastern architecture) with stained glass windows, and fountains, and latticework. So I love that too, it just depends how I’m feeling. There’s loads to appreciate everywhere.
How do you unwind?
I do karate so when I go to training I don’t think about anything else except my body, my breath, doing the moves right – and not getting told off by my sensei.
Most stylish place
Kyoto. It’s the zenith for a lot of design and it’s the original grid-system city. I like when you go there it’s got this ancient city but the layout has been copied time and time again so it feels like a very modern thing. And you go out into the hills and you’re in this beautiful wilderness with all these ancient temples. It’s a good hybrid; it all fits together.
City you’d move to
New York. I don’t think I could leave London forever because it’s my home and I love it too much. But of all the cities I’ve visited around the world, I’d say London and New York are probably the most similar in terms of the energy and in terms of multiculturalism with all kinds of different people living together. It’s the only other place outside London I can think of that really has that in a deep sense.
Strangest hotel experience
I was in a haunted hotel! Me and my husband [fashion designer Nicholas Daley] were in Scotland for a gig and we decided to stay there so I found this really cool old castle in a forest outside of Inverness. He’s a really no-nonsense sort of person – and definitely isn’t into ghosts or anything – but in the morning when he woke up he said ‘Something happened last night and I didn’t want to wake you up to tell you’. He’s 6’4″ so his feet always stick out of the bed and he said that something had pinched his toe really hard and bent it upwards and he freaked out.
We told the staff at breakfast and they said ‘Yeah, this hotel’s really haunted’ – they were so nonchalant about it. Then I was googling it on the way home and it turns out it was in the top 10 most haunted hotels in the world and all these American ghost-hunter tourists go there and I had no idea.
Best place you’ve ever swum
My favourite place to swim in the world is in Cape Town. In Seapoint, one of the neighbourhoods by the ocean, there’s this amazing 50-metre outdoor pool filled with seawater and it’s just my favourite thing in the world. I spent two months in South Africa at the beginning of the year and I went there every day.
Best beach you’ve ever found
Out of all the crazy places I’ve been around the world I actually still think one of my favourite holidays was with one of my best friends in the South of France where we stayed in her stepdad’s tiny little apartment in this kind of tacky holiday town called Cavalaire-sur-Mer. We had two bicycles and there’s a cycle path that goes along the coast with access to beaches you can’t get to from the road. We found one – I think it was called Calanque – that was the most blissful.
It’s not a holiday without…
Resting!
Guilty pleasure
Justin Bieber.
@account to follow
@historicengland because I love history and when they do specific posts about London I find it really fascinating.
Pool or ocean
Ocean.
Define love in three words
Difficult. Beautiful. Sometimes impossible (sorry, that’s four).
As told to Richard MacKichan. Nabihah was photographed in her studio at Somerset House by Michaela Watkinson. Her new album Dreamer is out on Ninja Tune on 28 April.