Nisha on the rocks
Soft notes stroked on the keys of a piano set the trap, and by the time you hear Nisha’s vocals, quiet, but strong, she has you. You are fully invested in an honest tale of yearning for a feeling once had…except this relationship is a lot like hard liquor. Sweet madness in the moment, until the hangover is served with a side of regret in the morning.
Nisha is probably the best kept secret living in plain sight New York has to offer. When she isn’t locked away in the lab working on her own projects; She runs one of the NYC’s most successful open mics, Wildfire (which she started out of NYC’s Nuyorican Poet’s Café), she is a vocal and performance teacher at the Clive Davis Institute and for a Billboard charting artist, and an established songwriter in her own right. With all that under her belt and a new evocative electro-pop ballad, written with the lyrical care of a folk song, listeners will definitely await more from this new and curious voice.
It’s been a minute since the world has heard a Nisha single. What was right about this song and this moment, to the point where you felt comfortable releasing “Hard Liquor”?
I think it was one of the scarier ones for me, even because of the title, ya know. I was very nervous and I felt like I had put my heart and soul into this song for two years. I kinda worked on it and then re-worked the track, re-worked the production, re-worked all the vocals. So, I was kinda playing around with the song for two years till I got it to a place where I wanted to release it and sometimes that can make things very scary. Because you feel like, “I’ve spent so much time and invested so much into it”. But, also because of that I know the song inside out and I was the proudest of it. So, it was the thing that scared me the most that made me know this song was the right decision.
A feeling of longing and need for connection is immediately felt when the listener hears the first words, “Fill me up”. Can you let us in on what inspired you to write such a vulnerable and open record?
Well, it’s that thing right. It’s like why do people stay in relationships for so much longer…and for me it’s like, when love is bigger than anything else. When how much you love or care about that person, blindly…and you invest so much time into it. It’s sorta like losing that or the feeling of losing that can…uhm…really feel like losing someone. Like someone died, ya know? And I have this line, “I wanna raise the dead”. And that’s what it was. I mean, for me, the relationship was over, but those feelings were so intense when I had them and I hadn’t experienced anything like them, that it was almost like I wanted to feel that madness again. And that’s really what the song is about. Kinda…Not wanting to go back to that person necessarily, but wanting to go back to that place.
And also when you’re done with a relationship, you kinda try to go back and look at it from all angles. These are my drunk goggles into my past. That’s what it is. Where things are sweeter than they were in real life and moments are more bitter than they were in real life.
You wrote this song with a friend of yours and fellow musician, Terrance Thomas. How did the collaboration come to be, especially with how vulnerable the track is?
We went to high school together, since freshmen year, we spent together. So, we’ve known each other since we were barely teenagers. And he doesn’t show up anywhere else on the EP, but for this song. We were in a writing workshop together and we had a song assignment. And he and I, we’re such good friends, so usually when we get into sessions together we spend most of our time talking. But, this time it worked out kinda cool, because we had this assignment; we had this push to finish something for class. I remember us just sitting in a studio in midtown. Literally this tiny studio. Smaller than most people’s bathrooms. And it was like a mic, a piano, and a window and it was freezing cold outside. And we weren’t thinking too much. We were just kinda like, “ Ok, we need to write a song”. And for me, I’m always committed to telling a really honest story. Ya know, really telling the truth, even if it doesn’t make me look that good or maybe shows a more vulnerable part of me. And that’s what we discovered.
And we had this title and this idea. And I thought there are many ways to write a song about hard liquor, but I wanted to access something really genuine about it.
Your vocal talent is rare, but your ability to write and get a listener invested in the story is on par. Your own background and upbringing was very international and a snapshot of many different places. How has that affected your writing?
Hmmm, I think the best thing that came out of growing up that way was that I love people and I’m very curious, and I’m not real scared of new things…and I don’t mean that in a dirt way. But, I have a child-like sense of wonder about things, because I didn’t get attached. I didn’t get very habituated to a certain way of living. And the difficult thing about it is, I think that’s why I’m so interested in this whole idea of identity. It’s jarring to move from Lagos, Nigeria to Central Florida. And it took me a long time to understand where I fit in or that it was perfectly normal that I didn’t fit in. And that was the source of me being an artist. The fact that I don’t fit in. The more I tried to be like everything around me, the tougher my life was. And the more I was honest with myself with what I wanted to do, the more fulfillment I got out of it.
So, you just came off another showcase with BMI. You’ve done shows and work with them in the past. How did that come to be and what can we expect in the future?
I love BMI. They’re like family to me. And the people who represent BMI are a huge part of the reason I am where I am, and I’m working with a lot of the people I’m working with. Its because of the support and the sorta development they’ve given me. People like Jake Simmons and Samantha Cox, who believed in me when I had a couple of demos circling and was gigging constanstly in the East Village.
Uhm, in the future, more writing, more co-writes. I’m working with, Alyson Stoner, Toby Gad (who co-wrote John Legend’s hit song “All of Me”). And I’m coaching with Daya, And I’m just starting to kind of expand my work as a writer and as a vocal producer which is really fun for me. I’m working a little bit more at, not just being the artist, but also being someone who has creative influence on other people’s projects. So, it’s exciting to start to do that, as I’m releasing my own work. Cause I feel like I can finish my own stuff and still explore different identities, and different people, and other relationships through writing for other people and working on their projects.
You mentioned coaching with Daya (who recently reached top 25 in Billboards Hot 100 with her single “Hide Away”). But, you also have a long history of mentoring and teaching, which has, lead to you currently teaching at the Clive Davis Institute in NY. How did this gift come to be?
So, with Daya I act as a vocal and performance coach, and as a bit of a friend, then a mentor. I just think she’s a really direct and genuine person. And I’m excited to see someone like that doing radio music.
As for Wildfire and the Clive Davis Institute and mentoring; that’s something that came naturally. I never set out to be a mentor a teacher. In fact, consciously I think it’s something I maybe shied away from. But, it was one of those things where I loved listening to artists. That’s why I started the open mic, because I love that sense of community. And I think it just comes as a natural progression, when you are someone who is committed to building a community and being there for artist and helping artist along the way. People start asking for opinions and advice. I think that there are a lot of things artist are trying to figure out in the new context of the music industry and our biggest resource is each other. And that’s really where I teach from. It’s really about the relationships you develop.
I think that’s what also makes me rigorous with myself. Like I haven’t released work as an artist in three years, because whatever I can offer the people around me…I’m so much harder on myself, ya know? And I think it’s important, so I can speak from experience. From trying and seeing what works and what doesn’t. And a lot of times students, it’s not that they need a teacher; they really need someone to listen to them. Just to act as a soundboard and hear what they really want.
And you mentioned it has taken 3 years to release music. Something had to change, why now?
So, I gave a Tedx talk recently and it was about the “Artist Identity” and I came to the realization in the last year, that you’re not an artist if you don’t have an audience. It’s one thing to be an artist in practice or an artist in development, but you don’t really feel the impact of it and it doesn’t really become real, until you have an audience and you have a relationship with them. So, I kinda realized there’s no right time. And to spend all your time in the lab and never release work means you never really get to experience that relationship. And then your music really isn’t about other people and the impact you have on them, right? So, for me, I realized that there really is no right time. Ultimately, who I will be as an artist will be developed in a relationship with my audience, trying things out. And once I realized that, it became easier to say I love this song and I hope people hear it and like it. Plus, it was my birthday, so that seemed like a pretty good reason.
Now that we have the first single, what do you have in the vault planned for the world?
Well, I’ve got a couple songs that I’m finishing up, which I love. I’m writing. I mean. I write every week and I’m in a period in my life where I feel very creatively inspired. So, my goal is to write as much as possible.
And for the new listeners just hearing about you and your movement, and new music; what will they receive from Nisha the artist?
It’s funny, because it’s really different for me, as an artist, than anything else. It’s where I get to go and be messy and imperfect. And it’s almost like it’s a relief. I think in order to be an independent artist, you have to support yourself, so I’m pretty disciplined as a person about what I do and how I live my life. But, when I get to go be creative, I get to be messy, and imperfect, and do the wrong thing. And that’s what I love about my work and that’s what I want it to be a space for. Like it’s an escape from having everything together.
We all have those days where you just want to scream or take someone’s head off, and the only place I could ever tell the truth was my art. So, yeah it’s messy, it’s imperfect, it’s…yeah.
-JT Tarpav
