Strand Three Profiles and Interviews - Ms. Shahin Badar

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Ms. Shahin Badar

Interview date: 13 _ Apr _ 06

Interviewed by: Jamil Iqbal

Ms. Badar is one of the female Bengali front runners of innovative musical collaboration with her blend of Indo-Arabic vocal resonance. Whilst many South Asian acts are now hitting the UK top 10 and international territories with their collaborations, she was one of the first to do so back in the late 1990s with her controversial contribution to the Prodigy single ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, which brought her a mainstream Triple Platinum award and a ‘Fat of The Land’ album which entered the Guinness Book of Records as the fastest selling UK album in 1999. The album was also nominated for a Grammy Award.

Asian Music Awards (AMAS) 2009 best alternative act nomination.

Ms. Shahin Badar

Q: How would you describe your music?
My music! It’s very difficult, but I think, it has a lot of different influences. It has pop, it has dance influence, it has slightly Sufi influence. I think it a mix of all different sounds, but it’s mainly a kind of combination of East meets West.

Q: How did you get involved in music?
It’s a very difficult question to answer. I think, my mother was a gazal writer, so I always hear my mum singing all the time. She was classically trained, she is also taught by Nawshadji, and she has performed with Mukeshji as well. So I used to always hear her and I naturally had the talent but I never took it seriously. It was through her push and support; I took some interest in music. She got music ustads, and I took few lessons here and there. But I never took it seriously again. Later on I did some shows and the shows were fantastic. I performed in Kuwait, I used to do a lot of multicultural shows. So later on I started to believe that I have a kind of natural talent, because everyone was talking and pushing me, whether it was in the school assemblies in Kuwait. I just had the older and the younger generation, telling me that I have something unique and I had to do something about it. Again I never took it seriously. Later on I think when I came to the UK, that’s when I did couple of shows here. I decided to take it seriously then, because of my involvement of some of the producers here. That’s how I think I got involved in music.

But music was not something I took serious at all in my life, because my father pushed me a lot more into my education. Music was something that just happened in my life through people just calling me up. So the involvement in music, I think, came obviously through the push through my teachers. They themselves pushed me a lot, my mother did and it was the talent, I think I naturally have an inbuilt talent. The progression came I think, mainly from (the) UK.

My first single was with the producer called Johny Zee, who is now called Stereo Nation. I just released the single and the single did pretty well. It was number four in the Bhangra chart in the UK. After that I took a break, because the whole industry was as I found was not very co-operative; I just found they weren’t co-operative with the female singers. They just wanted you to invest your own finance, which is still the case right now. They wanted to tie you down for many long period of time. There were no advance and there were no really major royalties. They just wanted to tie you down for four or five years. So I think the whole music scene put me off for four/five years and I just wasn’t really bothered about it. Until I got a call from a record company and basically they told me to do an album together. Again my sound is very Arabic, it has a lot of Arabic influences and that’s natural. I think I started doing that from a very young age, because I was brought up in Kuwait. So naturally I had that influence in me. I used to sing Nath in school assemblies, obviously read the Quran and all that Arabic sound was within me and it was brought up in Kuwait.

So we released our first album named ‘Destiny’ which was quite nice. It was very simple, it wasn’t the kind of sound I was used to. Because the sounds I like are the dynamic sounds. I am used to very big production, and that was in my mind. But unfortunately didn’t come out in that way. But the album was very well received; it had a very soft kind of production. After the album was received, the marketing of the album was not great. You can see the whole Asian scene, it wasn’t the kind of scene where I wanted to be in. I started writing my own melodies; I started producing my own material. So it was always composing, again because of my mother, because she was a writer and she was a gazal writer. The ustads always influenced me to do a lot of gazals, which was all great but I wanted to create something, I always brought in a different sound and they found it quite annoying because they felt that, I was very creative but my voice wasn’t what they expected. They were trying to train me in a certain sound, but I was doing something completely different, when I was singing a gazal as well. They said, I had a very unique kind of talent and I should pursue it. Then after I released my album the ‘Destiny’ album, they left it for a while and then I got a call from The Prodigy and that was it and that was the biggest thing that ever happened and I left a mark internationally.

They called me up and they said Shahin we have heard so much about you, can you send us your demo. Then Aki Nawaz of the Fundamental, mentioned about me to The Prodigy and at that time I was doing a lot of shows and I was doing a lot of melas. I was doing it as a hobby, I never took it seriously, because I just thought, music was great and I have got a voice and so what. I was never interested; I was more interested in my educational career. I was doing management, doing well there, as government officer was doing very well.

Then when the call came, I sent them a demo I worked on. And that demo, was just a demo, it wasn’t a finished product, it wasn’t a finished sound. But they loved the voice and straight after that I was invited to the studio, The Prodigy studio. I met Keith, I met Liam, Liam is the producer. Then we recorded the chant on the single. It was a very controversial track and I didn’t know that the track was going to be called ‘Smack my bitch up’ but when the demo was given to me, it was given as ‘Change my bitch up’. I recorded the chant and Alhamdulillah, with God’s blessing it was just one of the chants ever if I can think about it in history. It was an amazing collaboration; my collaboration with The Prodigy was amazing. Because, Liam was fantastic, when I went to the studio, he just said, “You know, Shahin you will listen to this”. He had an idea, what he was looking for, but when I heard the sound, I said to him, “Liam look, I am going to do something, if you like it, you keep it, if you don’t like it, you scrap it”. He said, “OK, let’s try it”.

Because the demo of ‘Smack my bitch up’ was already sent to me at home, I listened to it, I had something that I had developed anyway. I worked on a certain kind of themes, when I went to the studio; that’s what I recorded. I sang it to him and it was absolutely great and he loved it straight away. Keith, he was playing with his spiky hair, he said, it was awesome and everybody loved it and it was amazing and that was my cross into the mainstream. That was my first.
The greatest thing was, as a young child, I was a very shy person; very naughty but very shy. Very reserved, and I was also quite religious. Everything in my life, it was Alhamdulillah, a gift from Allah.

I always had in my mind, if I want to do something; it has to be something different. I never wanted to copy someone and I was very bad at it, I really couldn’t imitate someone. I just couldn’t, I was really bad. And if I did imitate a song, I would change the whole melody. This is what my mother used to get angry about. She said, “Shahin, I gave you a track, why don’t you sing exactly the whole song, the way it is”; like for example, Lata or Asha Bhosle singing; I would always change the song and that’s one of the reasons, I used to get fed up of singing when a song is given to me. I would be like, ‘yea, this is great, and the melody would go somewhere else. So my mother was annoyed with me, what is she going to do; I was never singing the complete song. I still have the problem now and I think, I get very bored, I think that’s what it is. I get bored, it is not the fact that I don’t want to do it. But if I wanted to do something, I wanted to do something unique in my own sound. Whether people liked it or not is not my problem. This is natural to me. And I always had that from when I was a kid, always in my life. Obviously it is something that can be frustrating, because the music directors would say, “Why don’t you sing me a song”. Here I am doing something of my own and they will look at me and say it was lovely and interesting, but it is so different.

When I was very young, Bappi Lahiriji called me and contacted me and he said, “Shahin, your voice is so different.” At that time I am not sure if Alisha’s stuff had come out and at that time he kept touch with me. But still I was never interested in music so I used to think of it--- its like, I will be in the room, I will be going out, I will be going to school, I will be singing in the bus and everybody will say, “Wao” “Oh! My God”, she is so good.
At the school, I had won the talent contest; I had sung one of the tracks by Nazia Hassan which is Boom, boom—that won me the talent contest.

My passion for music, I was always influenced by Sufi music, I was a huge fan of Qawali, I was a huge fan of dance music. Now you can imagine if you put Sufi and dance, you can see, what it has all to do with, it’s a gift that Allah has given because you are so connected spiritually to Allah. The whole nation, the world and the mind is not thinking of pop music, it is thinking of something very powerful. So when you are thinking of something very powerful, it’s a combination between dance, which is again powerful, and Sufi which is also powerful but that power is connected with Allah. Your thoughts about the creation and about our prophet; its praising them, and that’s praise and the beat I think for me, the beat is important, and I love powerful songs. UK was written in my fate, I came to (the) UK and I got involved with The Prodigy in the track. So the whole music scene for me is like an inspiration and a gift and that gift developed a lot later in my life then in early stage. I had it in the early stage but because I was not serious about it, I never gave it a lot of thought. But If I had—like people say there is a place and time for everything. That is the truth. I guess we did not have that outlet, my parents didn’t know that music directors, and we were unable to reach them in the early stage of my life.
Now as I grew up, I learnt a lot about life and the culture and now I know where to go. So for me basically that’s it.

Q: Who is your role model?
I think my role model is my inspiration, really. If I honestly have a role model, then I am a huge fan of Abeda Parvin. I love Michael Jackson (I know Michael Jackson has problems), Nusrat Fateh Ali Khanji, Pavarotti, there is not some one I will pin point, and say this is it and this is how I imagine. No I don’t have one like that because I am a very creative person, I create a vision, the sounds that I create, it’s my own thought. Because I am an extremely creative person, it has been mainly the people that I have mentioned, it is the people and the music of Qawalis and also my mother, she had been a huge inspiration to me and the guidance has been there. She has very strong influence on me. But I had no specific role model. I am a very spiritual person and it is inside me and I was very creative and I love music. I don’t think of having poster of a role model. But I use to listen to everything. I use to listen to old time songs, I use to love Indian movies and I use to love all that, so all those are there. But I think in terms of my own sounds and how I am as a performer that is just myself, that is just me. I haven’t gone to any specific school of dance, I haven’t gone to any specific school of music. I had been my own person, from when I was a kid and my parents had the most wonderful influence on me, because they always pushed me into what I wanted to do. You know a lot of people go to some fantastic classical school or they have got a lot of backing. For me it has been actually a gift and opportunities came my way. It was at the right place at the right time and the moment, as though it was written to me. Like even the stuff that happened with The Prodigy, it’s because Aki Nawaz of the Fundamentals said “You got to listen to this girl”. And he saw me four years ago, when he actually mentioned about me and for him to remember my voice all those years later was just amazing, and when the demo was sent it was fantastic. So with regards to my work with the Prodigy has left its mark, internationally and I am very proud to be one of the first female vocalist, if I may say so, to have crossed over with the first and the only dance band in history, because there hasn’t been anyone whose work in the Chant was created and left a mark. Alhamdulillah, what I created, I think it left a mark internationally and it will always be there regardless. A lot people now a day says, “We were the first, we were the second, what ever”. But I think when you leave a mark in the history in which ever way you leave a mark and that’s your own creation, it’s not a remix, it’s not a copy of something or whatever. Now a lot of people are doing collaborations but a lot of them has disregarded my collaboration; they didn’t want to acknowledge that there was an Asian girl, a lot of people thought that I was an Arabic singer, nobody knew me as a Bengali singer. I am proud that I have left this mark and it will always be the mark, it will always be there, regardless whether people accept it or not, it will always be there. It has been used in a number of biggest movies like Charlie’s Angels, Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider and Closer. These are all big movies, Grammy nominated movies. I think for me, my achievements came through a lot of hard work; there are so many things you have to have yourself, you have to push yourself to a certain level. You have to be consistent with your work. You can’t say, ‘Oh, well that’s only collaboration”. Part of the fact was that it was the fastest selling album in history of the world; until today it’s known and its round the world.
So someone can say that, “Shahin Badar, it’s not on your own, it’s collaboration, left a mark”. Lot of people will say, ‘I will do ten albums’. But sometimes those ten albums are not hit; it’s a disaster, out of the ten only one or two work. It’s actually disgraceful; it’s disheartening for an artist to release all these albums non-stop. And they never ever worked. Or if they do work, it’s exhausting for your body; it’s exhausting for your mind. No one heard about it, but when you do something, whether it’s Ravi Shanker, it’s Sheila Chandra, it’s been Jazzman, it’s been Apache Indian, me or Punjabi MC, all these people have left a mark. Mine was collaboration, but it was the biggest collaboration which is still going on.

I believe you just have to carry on, what you have in your mind, as long you carry on with what ever you are doing in life, and you just keep it in mind. It not that you will have to have ten albums, you got to do an album, or couple of albums; just keep your production up, keep your thoughts up, keep busy. Because people will respect you for that, people respect you for that, people respect you for leaving that mark, people respect you for being involved in different projects. I am a very strong believer, in the sense that I love different sounds, I love big sounds.

If some one says to me let’s to do an album, its going to be exactly what somebody else has done. I will have no interest into it because there are thousands of those things happening. I am still looking, I am working on my album, my album is cool, everything is great, but I am still yearning for the sound, that I am looking for and I still haven’t found it yet. Till today I am looking for it, and I know where it is, and I have to go to there. To go there you need time, you need pay, you need everything. But because I am involved in a lot of projects all the time in my life, and I am very busy with lot of situations. It’s difficult for me to take five years of my life and go with it. You need that backing, you need the company come to you as well.

Q: Do you play any instruments?
I play harmonium a little bit, I play the harmonium just to do my reyaz (singing practice). I keep up with he reyaz, I am very interested with classical music as well. I keep up with that.

Q: Can you tell us any memorable event, any gigs you participated and you are very proud of?
The most amazing gig for me was in Singapore, and I performed in front of 40 to 50 thousand people and it was absolutely amazing. It was actually with Joi (British Bangladeshi music band) I performed and it was absolutely mind blowing. Apart from that my other performances was with Tim Deluxe, when I wasn’t with him, when I released the single two years ago, on the track called Mundaya; when I went to the Global Gathering Festival , thousands and thousands of people were present. It is so amazing to see that the crowd go crazy, their hand are up in the air. They are not just Asians, they are non-Asians. They are so honoured to have you and the respect and the love that you get, it’s just absolutely mind blowing. You just go back, thinking ‘I am on the top of the world’. I haven’t done as many gigs in the last couple of years or so, as I have been taking time out. But when I did those gigs it was absolutely mind blowing. As soon you enter the stage, the scream and it’s just like they want to come on to the stage and pick you up and kiss you and hug you, thinking “Oh’ my God, you are the woman with the voice”. It is really strange and crazy. I also love the East end, one of the other festival I did in the East Ham, the crowd was I think ten thousand; the Bengali crowd, when I entered the stage, I guess it was the mela, the chant ‘Smack my bitch up’ was played and straight after the chant, I came with my dance and my stuff. The girls, they were just gob smacked and especially as for woman as you see, rather then you just wearing skimpy clothes and all that, just by performance alone, the crowds go crazy. That is the biggest gift that I can think they give me, to appreciate me and what I have given back to them. I think that is the most amazing to make them rock constantly, non-stop, they are screaming. It’s just amazing and to sing live and not mime and to get their reaction. Because to get a reaction and you are miming, doesn’t do nothing. Because they might as well hear a CD or a recorder and jump up and down, and say “Oh the song is really great”. To actually sing live and put them to rock to the sound and them coming up to you and taking your autographs and really appreciating you. Let me tell something, I was in Green Street just day before yesterday, and I was looking very dead, was very tired and I came out of there and there were two guys, at Upton Park station, they were behind me and they were constantly singing songs. They were singing some love songs, I ignored them, and I went and sat in the corner somewhere. I went into the train, they got aboard the train with me and one of the guys just tried talking to me. He was a college kid and he introduced him, “I am Jitu and the other guy was Shah” and they sat right in front of me. They were lovely boys. I was looking dead, I was very tired and I was looking horrible, I had to go and pick up my outfits for the show from Green Street. When I was there, one of the guy said to me, “You know, you remind me of a celebrity”. I said, “Do I”, and he said “yes”. He then said “You look like Shahin Badar”. I said, “It is me my dear”. He became crazy and was saying no no no it cannot be you. I said, “It is me without my makeup”. It was so sweet and he said some really lovely stuff. These guys are very trendy guys.

Obviously my sound is different, I don’t do R&B, and I don’t do Bhangra as much. I always do something different, they have influences of those and I have those elements in my songs. And for him to say, “My God, your voice; and you are delivering it in some way that you are an artist, it is so different”. It is so wonderful to get a comment like that, from this young generation. For them to remember me, even if I am not on the stage for about a year and a half now.

When you leave a mark as a woman, I am very proud. You can go to any part of the world and find some one who loves your voice, it’s just amazing. I have a friend in Camden Town, He said his friends, these guys are rough guys in Camden Town and he said “Shahin, when we heard you voice on ‘Smack my Bitch up’, they just got mad. They also comment nice of you, this is so lovely and to see hundred thousand of people when the Prodigy is performing and to see everyone get quite and there is a light, or a candle has been lit up or people has got their cigarette lighter on. And everyone is just on my voice. This is what I mean, I am thinking about it as well. You have left a mark; it is Allah’s gift, end of the day. Hits are there, lots of them, but internationally on that level, and for it to be picked up into numerous massive films to known Cameron Diaz, to know this person was it. Drew Barrymore picked up my chant and put it on Charlie’s Angels at the bit when they had an accident. To know that enclosure at this part, the producer said, “I am going to use this vocal, I am going to use Shahin’s vocal”. It’s amazing. Then obviously with them and performed with Twister on their last album, on the track ‘Get up, get off’. That was also amazing. I was with A.R. Rahmanji in two movies, one called Zubeidaa, and Yeh Rog. Now unfortunately the song which was the most amazing song I did with him is called Azizi, never got released because the film which was called the ‘Thief of Baghdad’ didn’t get released and it had Jean-Claude Van Damme and it had Aishwarya Rai. The movie never got released because of finance or other problems.

Q: People say, when you mix East and West type of music, the whole song is changed and the whole melody is changed; what is your comment on this?
Yes, exactly, this is right; and I absolutely hate it. Remixes are great but the original sounds, you don’t feel it anymore. The singer, the voice, the deliverance, the tone, the tune, the music production, the class; you can try and do thousands of them. But what the producers are doing right now, they are trying to create a sound for their generation or our young generation, who only dance to the rhythm and kind of feel. But our generation people or father-mothers or mum-dad, uncles-unties; they use to feel, they were poetic, they were cultural. So with that kind of feel, I think some of the producers, some of them are putting quick beat in there and think it will be fine. They don’t want to concentrate talking on the production and few of them kill the song. They get someone who possibly doesn’t get the same tone of the original singer and trying to get the sound produced as the original. I don’t mind, in the sense that you want to create something different. But if the remix itself is not very good, they are absolutely degrading the whole song and the tradition from where the song came. I really believe in originality. That’s why may be I have never covered a song as yet, and everyone tells me till today, “Shahin, you have never covered a song”. Because may be I don’t believe in it. But I will do it, I will do it, but I just don’t want to offend someone who has done something great. If you want to do it, do it properly and create something different with the sound. But it’s difficult to get the copyrights as well. So obviously you are saying, ‘Let me just create something’ and there is no problem, I don’t mind them doing this. Because, obviously this is what the younger generation want now; our generation wanted something totally different, this generation want something different. Sounds are always changing, after three or four years, the classical music could be the most hippest music. Now Bhangra and R&B, all these kind of stuff are working right now with influences on, which are really funky; I love today’s sounds, I think they are great. But when you make a bad mix or something, I have no respect for that whole sound. But they should keep the original stuff; they should keep the original sounds. When the feeling of what we use to get in the older generation, you don’t get that now. When you hear a couple of version, except for some producers, I must say they have done a classic job, they have done a fantastic job of it. But I think, you have to retain some of the original sounds. And people don’t think that way; it is also sometimes not the producers fault. Because the record companies themselves demand it. So how can you say, the producer has done some bad job, because the record company is saying, “I want to sell, thousands of CDs”. Because the buyers are one who are buying this kind of stuff. Same is true for the downloads; if are going to download something, there is no copyright and legal obligations to stop it. Then it’s going to be down loaded anyway. So who is it, it’s the public, so you can’t really blame the producers, you can’t really blame the producers, you cant really blame the artist because they are trying to move forward; we had at my mother’s time, even in India, and even in Bangladesh and Pakistan; the original sounds and the production. They were using the original instruments. There are fantastic musicians are there, it was mind blowing. In UK, you don’t have that, it is very difficult, so the poor young producers; I do feel a lot for them. The knowledge is limited to a certain extent. But still they combine it, some of them combine it with very classy mix in it, they still get it. But in India, it’s like, in the morning they know it; that’s what they have on the face; that’s what they do, day in day out. That’s what’s in there. But I don’t agree with them mixing something which is really bad, but if they are signed to record companies, they must be careful. I will tell you why?

I went to India for a record deal, straight away they said, “We love your voice, you are unique”, everything was said to me. Fine, right at the end of it, they said, “Shahin, why don’t you do a cover album”. This is what they have told me, so if you are telling things to an artist coming from the mainstream angle. The fact is if the first thing they were telling me, “Shahin, do all the old day songs and give it to us”. Then how do you seriously think of me as an artist, what is that I am going to feel. Producers will say me to sign that contract, I am going to walk away from it, I am not going to sign the album deal; and people are releasing something because they just want to dance to those sounds. For me when a production is given to me, I create a certain kind of melody, sound and composition to it. But people go to like it, they might think this is different, this is mad. They love it later on, because it is original. For me you can never beat originality, you can never beat pop, even when Nazia Hassan and all of them did it original; now people are trying to copy it. When Lataji release something it is original. Even some of our Bengalis in Bangladesh, some of the music are amazing, the original Bengali guitarist, their voices, it is just mind blowing, I just hear them and I just want to collaborate with some of the guys. But those things are not brought in here. I don’t think the encouragement is there. They don’t take it seriously, I’m proud of Bengali music but here they don’t take it seriously.

Q: Do you participate in melas and festivals?
Yes I do, I have done a lot of melas and lot of festivals. I haven’t done melas or festivals in last couple of years and I performed Hajj with my father. And I had to be there for my father and it is one of the reasons, because we are only two daughters and I had to be like a son for my father. I had time off for about a year and half. One of the reason, I have to be honest now, I stopped doing melas for a while. I am a very strong performer, I am a different performer. I am not a very typical. Now when I go into the stage, unfortunately at least the two rows of the crowd, (this is my past experience), in some melas; the crowd get extremely violent, they throw things; as soon as they see woman. These boys or people who do this, I feel very sorry for them, because they are representing a community at the end of the day. When I go on there, I want to give them, my performance and my love to these people. We are Asians, when I go to White crowds; I perform in front of completely White crowds, 40 or 30 or 20 or 10 thousand people; when I have done such big crowds and none of them has behaved this way. Why our Asians do it. It’s very disheartening for woman, for me to come on the stage. I am a respected girl, I come from a respected family, and we all do. There are thousands of people who come to watch, they come from respected families. So at least the younger generation, they should think in the way that this could be my sister, could be my mother, could be anybody that might go on the stage tomorrow. If I behave in a obnoxious manner, I am actually offending my culture, my religion, my people. This is a very important thing for them to know and also in term of security; the security must be very strong at that time. But boys are allowed to have things like bottles in their hands, papers in their hands, stones in their hand. Any thing can happen, the stone can hit me in the head or my eye or whatever. It’s disrespectful, not only to a woman; it’s disrespectful to a man, to bands as well. They are doing music, they are doing it for you, and they are doing it for the community. They are trying to make you happy. So it’s very important on cultural events, for me to go back, if I was to go back. Even in the Bengali community, it’s very important for the organisations themselves to have extremely strong security for their own reputation. Because the person like me will never turn up there again. It’s very important, you respect the girls and the younger generation of woman, the younger generation of man; they have to learn the respect for our Bengali community, for the Islamic sense … when you carry yourself, carry yourself with pride and with culture.

Q: Are you in the process of bringing out some album?
Yes, I am working on an album right now and Insha-Allah (God willing), the album is going to be out in about the next couple of months. My manager is working on it as well, so trying to get the deal, so at the moment we are looking for some sponsor for the marketing. I hope people are going to enjoy it. I hope they will appreciate it really. I was really busy travelling, I have been to Lebanon and Germany and have some amazing productions. I have also finished working with Super Fly, who was No.15 or No. 16 in the chart last year. That track is coming out in the summer. I am really busy writing and composing some of the sounds the younger generation is going to like as well. It’s a mixture. Later on the year, I am hoping to release a Nath album. It’s for all my people, all the people who do love me and all the people who can get influenced by me. I have got lot of very wonderful fans, who I admire, who always supported me. It’s actually for them as well. So Insha-Allah, if there is something positive I can leave and they can learn something from me and if they can feel something. If it can help them in any way or at any time of their life, I would like to give them back, when I am still alive. So I would like to do that.