I want to be more musically nuanced: Fairooz Nazifa

When I interviewed Fairooz Nazifa, two days after her coke studio debut, the general hype around her was obvious. Everyone was talking about Nazifa's execution of Shahnaz Rahmatullah's 'Ghum Ghum' rendition by the Coke Studio ensemble — how much they liked it, how much they did not, how much the 26-year-old vocalist had "butchered" the pronunciations of certain Bangla words with her "bideshi" accent, just like she "supposedly" did on her 'Tumi Hina' collaboration a few years ago.

For me, it was about taking a deeper dive into her musical journey: what led her to be the vocalist she is today, where she wants to reach, and how she plans on doing it. 

But for deciphering the art of an artist, it is important to know the person underneath the artist. Which is exactly why the first question was, "Who are you?"

"Who am I? Well, I am Fairooz Nazifa, who dreams to be a master polymath; which doesn't make sense because a polymath cannot be a 'master' but I'm calling it a 'master polymath' because I want to be a master at the arts that I have promised myself to be involved in throughout my life," responded Nazifa.

In layman terms, a polymath is someone who possesses a vast knowledge over a number of subjects. Transposing this concept onto Nazifa's musical trajectory makes total sense. She started small: took some elementary music courses on the internet, uploaded a few ukulele covers on YouTube and as of 1 August, she released the music video of her original single 'Resuscitate.' 

However, she humbly claims that she is nowhere near where she wants to be as a vocalist yet, but what's more interesting is how she has matured, improved and evolved into her current version — a version that led her to sharing the stage with the stalwart Fuad Almuqtadir and quite recently, to the stage of Coke Studio.

Arguably, her first big breakthrough came through her collaboration with and on Fuad's 'Tumi Hina' in 2019. In Fuad's words, Nazifa possesses "unique tonal characteristics" in her voice, which was what led him to collaborate with her in the first place. 

Nazifa's vocal "uniqueness" was on full display in that jazzy rendition of Tumi Hina — a rendition that could be played in jazz clubs in the west and not sound out of place. 

Fast forward a few years, Nazifa, now a much more known face in the Bangladeshi music industry,  made her Coke Studio debut where she vocalised a composition of the legendary Lucky Akhand. Comparing her two 'mainstream' releases, her development as a vocalist can be audibly heard and that is the very mark of an ardent learner. 

"I am my harshest critic. I once took an online 'hate' comment to heart, where I was called out for sounding too monotonous. I did end up working on it and I believe I have improved. Back then, my voice used to crack when I attempted to sing high notes. I had no ornamentation in my voice, had no vibrato in my singing armoury," Nazifa stated.

"And now, I find people coming up to me and saying that I finally have a good vibrato. That's when I know that I have improved. I want to be more musically nuanced," she added.

The process of improving a skill is not easy and to attain the validation of her vocal skills from accomplished fellow musicians, Nazifa had to practise long hours every morning after waking up. So that she doesn't sound off on stage, she does her vocal warmups for around two hours just so that she can get in the zone.

Now, let's address the elephant in the room. When you go mainstream, it also brings in mainstream criticism and one of the most generic slanders surrounding Nazifa is her presumed lack of  proficiency over the Bangla language. She has been called out by many for not sounding traditionally correct when singing Bangla lyrics. I asked whether it bothers her or not.

"I have been called out many times for this. It's not that I never pay any heed to the slander but it also doesn't necessarily mean that my pronunciation won't ever be fixed or won't ever improve. There's always room for improvement and I believe it has gotten better over the years.

"Look, I grew up in a Chatgaiya household. No one ever spoke to me in anything other than in Chatgaiya dialect. My only exposure was to either that or English from cartoons and television. There's a lot of diversity in how even Bangla is spoken across Bangladesh and not everyone's 'accent' or pronunciation is going to sound the same. If one can make their way around it, then why not? It's not as if the person can't improve," Nazifa explained further.

Earlier this week, Nazifa released the music video of her original single 'Resuscitate'. Resuscitate is just an example where the 'artist' inside Nazifa got to flourish other than just the 'musician' Nazifa. She herself designed and directed the music video, which was also Nazifa's graduation project at her university. All the puppets and sculptings on the music video were done by Nazifa. 

"I tried integrating my art with my music through this. Now I'm heading to Minneapolis to get a Masters in Fine Arts and to that I also want to add Sound Art. There's so much to explore and I will be integrating my art and music together," she said.

From my casual hour-long conversation with her, my primary takeaway is that Nazifa is just a girl who loves singing. If you broke Nazifa down to her last atom, music and art will be all that remain. That and a whole heap of crazy energy to have fun and live life to the fullest, while trying to master the arts she loves; sticking true to her plans of being a master polymath.