It’s the nature of the music producer to collaborate — probably because they spend so much of their waking lives demoing new plugins, optimizing the brightness setting on their DAW, and bathing in hot tubs full of cold, hard cash that they don’t have any time to make friends. Take Fatima Al Qadiri, for instance, who has become a collabo-pro in the last few years with projects like Future Brown and, now, her just-announced new EP called Shaneera.
The new EP features the recorded debuts of a handful of Al Qadiri’s friends: Bobo Secret, the EP’s “leading vocalist;” Lama3an, a Kuwaiti/Iraqi architect, fashion designer, and artist; Chaltham, AKA Khalid al Gharaballi, a long-time collaborator of Al Qadiri’s; and Naygow.
Over the course of five tracks, this ragtag assemblage of talent takes on the iconography of the pop diva in the Arab world in a way that “follows Al Qadiri’s long term exploration of gender identity and performance in the Gulf.” If that’s not switching on any lightbulbs in your ol’ noggin, maybe this will send a surge of something to your cerebellum:
Shaneera is the English mispronunciation of the Arabic word shanee’a (شنيعة), literally meaning “outrageous, nefarious, hideous, major and foul.” In one iteration of the word, as queer slang used in Kuwait and some Arab countries, a positive and desirable light is shed on these attributes. Shaneera refers to a gender-defying persona (or temporary state or action), of being an evil queen. You know a Shaneera when you behold one.
If you’re like me and you love a good character-piece-cum-club-banger, you’ll want to grab the Shaneera EP October 13 via Hyperdub; pre-orders are very much open at Al Qadiri’s Bandcamp page. But at the bare minimum you should listen to the sinister, pounding groove of preview track “Alkahaf” down below, alongside the EP’s tracklist, because it is truly the highest embodiment of #squadgoals.
Shaneera EP tracklisting:
01. Shaneera feat. Bobo Secret and Lama3an
02. Is2aleeha feat. Bobo Secret & Chaltham
03. Alkahaf feat. Bobo Secret & Chaltham
04. Spiral feat. Bobo Secret
05. Galby feat. Naygow
More about: Fatima Al Qadiri