Nadine Shah

Nadine grew up in Whitburn and carries the sea inside of her. She started out as a jazz singer, wrapping her lips around rich, complex melodies, but her own dark and brooding music grew out of the violence she saw in the world around her.

She believes that a platform should be used to lift up others, and her first album, Love Your Dum and Mad, delved into the barbed world of male suicide and mental illness after two of her close friends took their own lives. She often speaks about the importance of talking and looking after each other, in her role as an ambassador for mental health charity CALM.

Her third album, Holiday Destination, was nominated for a glittering Mercury Prize. She named it after a television report on the European migrant crisis, where sunburnt Brits berated migrants fleeing civil war in Syria for arriving on Greek beaches and spoiling their summer holidays. In bold, velvety tones she sings about the lack of empathy towards those in need, as well as Trump’s presidency, the EU referendum and the role of the media in politics. She says, ‘I think artists need to document the times they live in and what I wanted to do was to humanise the dehumanised by narrating first-hand testimonies. I wanted to give people a voice who don’t normally have one.’

The daughter of a Pakistani father, Shah draws on her own experiences of moving through the world as a Muslim woman to push back against the racism she sees strung through the core of society. She is honest about how it feels to be a woman in a male-dominated music industry and speaks openly about gender pay gaps. She uses interviews to give space to urgent issues that feel bigger than her own.

‘I am just someone who wants to speak out about anyone who is in a situation where they are suffering,’ she says. ‘I am telling other people’s stories because they are important, and they need to be heard.’