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Shahzaib 🍉

@shazzasherazi

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Deputy Editor @clashmagazine
Twitter: @shazsherazi

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So proud to say I profiled @kelela - an artist I've admired for much of my adult life - for the cover of @clashmagazine.

We're calling this issue Spring Reign.

In conversation, Kelela and I went deep, unfurling the layers of new album 'Raven', her tribute to the clandestine underground. So much wisdom imparted, so much truth conveyed.

Six years after her critically-acclaimed last release, #kelela demarcates new lines with an expansive album. An invite-only space beyond the white gaze, Kelela’s curates a club night for the outsiders, the marginalised, the hustlers and the survivors.

Is this the exchange of my life and career thus far? Possibly.

Kelela's command of pose and posture is second to none and the entire creative team did wonders on this shoot. Cover feature will be online soon....

Pre-order link to #Clash124 in my bio, Clash's IG page and Clashmusic.com.

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Words: @shazzasherazi
Photography: @aidanzamiri
Fashion: @Jordannkelsey
Creative Direction: @RBPMstudio
Hair: @keitakanohair
Make-up: @porshepoon by @shazzasherazi

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4 years ago

Interviewed space-hopping virtuoso Thundercat for the cover of CLASH 133. Our Delirium Issue.

We talked healing, process and the digital dread/myopia underscoring the bassist's pop-facing comeback album, 'Distracted'.

A genuine delight to spotlight a seasoned musician in it for the love of it.

Order your copy of CLASH 133 by clicking the link in the @clashmagazine bio or by visiting clashmusic.com.

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Words: @shazzasherazi
Photography and Artwork: @jasamuller
Fashion: Self-styled
Creative Direction: @rbpmstudio

Thundercat wears full look @anndemeulemeester_official by stefanogallici; trainers by @schiaparelli; eyewear by @rayban. by @shazzasherazi

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7 months ago

Interviewed Olivia Dean for the cover of CLASH 131. A delight to capture an artist in their story of becoming.

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Two years on from her Silver-certified, Mercury Prize-nominated debut LP ‘Messy’, @oliviadeano returns with new album ‘The Art Of Loving’ - a pillowy collection of burnished soul, jazz and bossa, accented by the sheen of modern pop.

Inspired by the exhibition All About Love by Mickalene Thomas - an homage to the feminist writer bell hooks, who deepened the concept of love and relationships in all its forms - Dean traces a non-linear journey through her mid-twenties with self-love as the bedrock.

Opening up her repertoire to a stellar blues-rock collaboration with Sam Fender, featuring in the end credits of a Bridget Jones movie, and bypassing fears of a sophomore slump on an album that soars with heart and intention, Olivia Dean is asking her listeners to slow down and meet her at this moment. This is her utopia.

She tells CLASH: “I want listeners to luxuriate in their feelings… I want them to think about how we treat each other, and how we neglect and love ourselves. I sit with my feelings, and they can be intense. But I’m honouring that intensity because I feel strongly.”

Click the link in the @clashmagazine bio to pre-order your copy of CLASH 131.

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Words: Shahzaib Hussain
Photography: @florencemann_
Fashion: simonebeyene
Photographer 1st Assistant: @shiori0ta
Hair: @sophie_jane_anderson
Make Up: @emilyengleman
Creative Direction: @rbpmstudio
Video: @haruki.design

In association with @magnumuki by @shazzasherazi

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a year ago

Live Report: Primavera Sound Barcelona 2024

In its 22nd edition, Primavera Sound returned to its roots. Festival organisers streamlined the event space, removing the satellite venue in Madrid from the programme after its inaugural trial last year. This year’s headliners proved their place on the billing as touring stalwarts but if there was a point of contention it was the lack of true primetime star power – a belaboured theme across much of the other premier festivals this year.

Still, Primavera Sound’s biggest draw is its commitment to platforming a gender-balanced, genre-inclusive line-up. The dreaded overlap became a window of opportunity to catch the rare gems and risers emerging as acts to bet on amongst the ones making a comeback. Speaking of comebacks, Freddie Gibbs and Madlib honoured their hardcore rap excursion, ‘Piñata’, with a commemorative performance; an ad-hoc set made looser and more inviting through wine-soaked repartee between the rapper and producer.

For the full live report click the link in the bio.

Words: @shazzsherazi
Photography: @ellemensah taken in Primavera Sound by @shazzasherazi

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2 years ago

Happy to announce I'm now the deputy editor at @clashmagazine!

Will continue to support the team and augment the publication's vision across our print, online, podcast/video channels.

Gratitude to my Clash tribe, and the wider network of musicians, PRs, contributors and creatives who I've been fortunate enough to foster connections with these last few years. Our current music ecology is unrelentingly bleak right now, guys we gotta lean on each other!

Here's to many more collaborations - you know where to find me 📧 by @shazzasherazi

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3 years ago

Goodbye 2023. #2024 will be the year of revolution Inshallah 🍉 by @shazzasherazi

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3 years ago

Interviewed Teyana Taylor for the digital cover of CLASH 132.

In the midst of a breakout year across music, film and TV, the Harlem-born artist and auteur opened up on overcoming industry disenchantment, wrestling back creative ownership through her production company The Aunties, and assuming form on her most complete album to date, 'Escape Room'.

Full feature is now online @clashmagazine.

Words: @shazzasherazi
Photography: @edwiggery by @shazzasherazi

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a year ago

Interviewed pop's new mononym JADE (@jadethirlwall) for the 20th anniversary issue of CLASH - an issue we're calling Neo-Classical.

She's the real deal. A nu-pop marvel but above all a conscious individual reckoning with her place in the world.

Order your copy via the CLASH IG. Full interview online soon!

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In her post girl-group epoch, JADE has encoded her history in artful, addictive songs that explore the paradox of fame.

Conceptualising an era redolent of a noughties fanzine, JADE’s first steps towards solo glory disentangle her private and public personas, shattering the televised illusion whilst arriving at a new epiphany.

Embracing the far-flung idiosyncrasies she had to stifle early in her career, JADE’s forthcoming debut album heralds the arrival of a top-of-the-class graduate of the old and new school of pop music.

“The entire process of making this album has been about honouring who I truly am,” she tells CLASH. “The difference now is I’m very much aware of what this all is. I can’t be surprised or hoodwinked anymore, because I’ve experienced it all.”

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Words: @shazzsherazi
Photography: @florencemann_
Photography Assistant: @georgiafaywilliamz
Fashion: @apollinecoquet
Fashion Assistant: @emelinetvn
Creative Direction: @rbpmstudio
Make Up: @gracemariaellington at Saint Luke Artists
Hair: @mtjp333 by @shazzasherazi

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2 years ago

Excited to share I interviewed JENNIE for the cover of CLASH 130, our 'Mantra' Issue.

Over the last decade, the doe-eyed Korean singer found superstardom in the world’s biggest girl-group. Now, charting her first tangible steps as a solo artist, JENNIE is diverging from the path of candy-coated maximalism to a more expansive realm.

Reshaping the K-pop biosphere in her own image, @jennierubyjane’s story is a counterpoint to the prevailing narratives of that sanitized world. The inaugural project on her own label Odd Atelier, ‘Ruby’ reflects a new era of experimentation, one teeming with left-field collaborators and ideas inspired by a grand sweep of international genres.

In this revealing cover conversation, #JENNIE dissects the metamorphosis at the heart of her album, whilst reckoning with her trainee upbringing, the demands of band activity, and her own aspirations. This is JENNIE unleashed.

“I knew I had to tap into that zone inside of me, this feeling of restlessness and change,” JENNIE tells CLASH. “I want to tell the world what I've been suppressing, and what I’ve been holding onto.”

Pe-order link is in the @clashmagazine bio. Support print people!

Full cover interview will be online imminently.

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Words: @shazzasherazi
Photography: @brendanfreemanphoto
Fashion: @meenmeenmeen_
Creative Direction: @rbpmstudio
Hair: Gabe Sin @gabe.sin
Make-up: Sol Lee @2501x2501
Manicurist: Park Eunkyung @nail_unistella
Set Design: Isaac Ashley @isaacashley_
Production: Rosie Cartwright @rosie_cartwright by @shazzasherazi

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2 years ago

Soul Of Seoul: Balming Tiger Interviewed

Named after the Ancient Asian herbal salve, South Korean collective @balmingtiger invoke their moniker by inviting the listener to douse themselves in their one-of-a-kind sonic panacea. Their songs are rhythmic, bouncy but always restorative; a fizzy mash-up of hip-hop, Chiptune electronics, synthesized RnB and homespun K-pop. A Balming Tiger production is not an outright dismissal of the K-pop hierarchy but an active subversion of its preened, commodified foundations.

The Internet Collective derives their strength in numbers. There is no peripheral member; every member is key to the internal alchemy of a group that interlocks and expands with every subsequent release. Founded by interdisciplinary mastermind San Yawn in 2018, the revolving collective in its current guise consists of performers Omega Sapien, sogumm, bj wnjn, Chanhee Hong, Mudd the Student, and a coterie of supporting producers, auteurs and visual artists. Their debut album, ‘January Never Dies’, is an epic celestial trip that manages the tricky feat of mapping out each character’s essence in a wider tapestry.

For CLASH, Balming Tiger share their origin story, breaking down an amalgamated sound that bridges K-pop tropes with a maverick spirit. Together they honour an entity that is forever mutable.

Click the link in the bio for the full feature.

Words: @shazzasherazi
Photography: @ellemensah by @shazzasherazi

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2 years ago

Astral Realm: An Alternative Roundup #19

Focus Artist: jerry (@monkmiyagi)

The Odd Future cohort - a revolving door of misfits, provocateurs, sensationalists and anarchists - occupy a mythic space in the consciousness of millennial listeners. At the heart of the cabal was Hodgy, who in a post-Odd Future, post-Tumblr landscape unveiled transitional solo projects and scrapbook EPs to muted acclaim.

Now, older, wiser and more hardened, he’s assumed a new moniker, jerry. Charting the next stage in his creative evolution, this iteration is anchored in the mosaic, tempered world of Toronto: a period of regeneration and reckoning documented on new album, ‘lovemesooner’. Released on Valentine’s Day, it’s a project that’s flown under the radar in a stacked first quarter, and deserves to be exalted.

The 18-track odyssey is by turns downbeat, unobtrusive yet wide open. It’s enamoured with the entangled web of modern love, with jerry tracing the serpentine journey through unabashedly romantic, tragic and at times, painful terrains. It’s the kind of music that seeps into your bones, ripe with elliptical overtures made resonant through notes that linger.

In a typically terse exchange, it’s evident jerry is the same eccentric he’s always been. But this time, this guise is here to stay.

Click the link in the bio to read the Astral Realm feature in full.

Words: @shazzasherazi
Photography: @heyiamnadia by @shazzasherazi

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3 years ago

Ending the year on a creative high with my final @clashmagazine Astral Realm roundup of 2023, featuring spotlight interviews with @alisethiofficial / Nicolar Jaar and electronic-rap duo @_h31r.

For those seeking immersive, glitchy, morbidly sensual world-building, this roundup's for you.

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In the spirit of year-end introspection, I want to extend a heartfelt gratitude to the artists, PRs and labels for enabling me to carve out a space for the vanguards, innovators and non-conformists.

Astral Realm continues to be a renewing source of exploration for me - I hope it's a conduit to something open, freeing and limitless to you also.

Shoutout my PR tribe:

@tommybigwrld
@vomprincess
@sifon_greg
@sophiebrockle
@bigdadarecordings
@genesisegarcia
@toast_press
@orienteer

All 2023 Astral Realm interviews are in my IG highlights and in the CLASH archive.

--- by @shazzasherazi

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3 years ago