Today, migration seems to be encoded into everyday habits. As so many of our minds and bodies aggressively globalise in unprecedented ways, previously fixed “genres” and identities of any kind are constantly being dismantled, made redundant, and born anew.It’s from this space of flux that American composer and vocalist Sheherazaad derives song. Her forthcoming mini-album, Qasr, produced by star musician Arooj Aftab, was engendered during a time of family estrangement, grief over a lost elder, and the racial polarisation of her country as she knew it.
Translating to “castle” or “fortress” in Urdu, Qasr is indeed a monument —like encapsulation of the real strains of displacement, the push and pull of diaspora, and the depravity of erasure and forgotten roots.