Nisa

Photo provided by, Nisa

Meet Nisa

After braving a power outage on top of all the usual craziness, I am happy to end this week with the soft hypnotizing sounds of Nisa. This terrific NY artist wears their heart on their sleeve. Their sound is the much-needed blanket at the end of a long hard week. Check out their latest release “Forget Me / Giving” and get to know the artist a little better as we chat it up in our latest interview.

A self-portrait by Nisa

Would You Rather

only be able to talk in fortune cookies, or backward? Why?

I’d have to go with the first one. How cool and mysterious would it be to hand someone a fortune cookie every time you have something to say? You’d have the element of surprise in your back pocket at all times and if it's something super embarrassing, and you can make a break for it before the reveal. Plus, you’d always be giving someone food for thought so that can’t hurt.

Some questions with Nisa

What was the creative inspiration behind your latest release “Forget Me / Giving”?

Although the tones are pretty polar, the songs were actually written about the same situation, which I tried approaching from two angles (acceptance and reluctance). I think that’s why I think they counterbalance each other melodically. I wrote “Giving” at my friend José’s studio in Ridgewood this past winter. He already had that beautiful piano melody floating around, so the lyrics and melody were a pretty immediate reaction to how much I loved what he had composed. “Forget Me,” also started out as a piano ballad, but then I started playing around with a drum machine in Logic, and it quickly turned into a bedroom pop song (literally, since I was stuck in my bedroom for a few months).

Are you self taught?

Pretty much! I had a few months worth of guitar and piano lessons from a neighbor in elementary school, and I ended up liking guitar a lot more, so I continued teaching myself online thereon after. I’ve been able to get by with a limited knowledge of theory by playing with my much more talented friends. In college, I joined a rock collective, which really helped reinforce my understanding of how group dynamics and collaboration do just as much for your progress as Youtube, another invaluable tool in the DIY kit.

Who has been your biggest supporter throughout your musical career?

Definitely my mom. She's always been supportive of my sister and I in our artistic endeavors, giving equal weight to the creative arts when we were growing up. She used to come to all the shows I’d play at Sidewalk Cafe in the East Village before it shut down in 2019. In high school, she somehow let me drag her to a bunch of 18+ shows. My cat, Waffles, is a close second though—he hears all the demos first.

Where would be your dream venue to play a show? Why?

The Roundhouse in Camden for sure. I lived in London last year and used to hang around there whenever I could. I went to a ton of shows and took advantage of their creative spaces to meet local musicians, so it would be really cool to take the stage there. The venue also has this rich history where it was once a gin distillery, a turntable engine shed, and more recently, a storagehouse. It underwent this huge transformation when they turned it into a performing arts venue but the interior still has the original cast-iron columns and fragments of the early rail lines, which makes for some of the coolest live energy ever.

What do you like best about the NYC music scene?

At the risk of sounding too cliché, NYC is full of endless talent and opportunity never really ceases. It’s daunting and it's awesome. There’s also this undercurrent of support and honesty among musicians here that I’m super grateful for, and it's given me a confidence to perform that I don’t think I would’ve had if I hadn’t witnessed it in others first. Some of my favorite music right now comes from friends who are also just making things out of their home studios in the city. People seem to give themselves over to something larger than life when they enter this community, but I also feel that any given experience or collaboration can be life-changing as long as it resonates with you.

What is your biggest pet peeve?

I want to say laziness but it's completely self-directed—I’m hyperactive and need to move around a lot to process things and work so sitting in one place and procrastinating just doesn’t bode well for me. But then again, whenever I’m really busy, I think about how nice it would be to just sit in a warm room by a scented candle.

What kinds of stories do you like to tell through your music?

I tend to approach things with a lyrics-first mindset, which leads me to writing a lot of introspective and confessional songs. I also spend a lot of time studying how much I overthink in any given situation, but I think that’s pretty universal. My upcoming project is meant to carry the listener through the contradicting feelings involved with working through a difficult breakup, especially when it's really just yourself that you’re left fighting in the end. Its closer to the guitar-driven stuff that I grew up playing, so I’m focusing on letting that have its own voice in the songs. More recently, I’ve started to explore character-driven stories that are less about me and more about whatever narrative context I feel inclined to work from, especially in the style of PJ Harvey, who I draw a lot from creatively.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

The digital presale for “Forget Me / Giving” went toward the Okra Project, a 100% grassroots, organizer-led initiative founded in NYC with the goal of combating food insecurity in the Black Trans community—something that’s only become a more pressing issue with the ongoing health crisis. It is a wonderful collective that relies completely on support from local communities, so if you get the chance, check out their website to donate and to possibly get involved!

Also, I have a single “Colossus," and it'll be out August 17th, so, if you’d like, be on the lookout for that soon :).