Black British music is officially back. Not that it ever went anywhere, of course – but over the past year or so, we’ve seen a remarkable interest in R&B, rap and alternative music that comes from right here on these shores, as opposed to from our brothers and sisters across the Atlantic.
Someone more than ready for her part of this renewed focus is R&B-electronic-funk artist NAO. By no means a rookie in the music business, the London-based artist (real name Neo Jessica Joshua) already has one album under her belt: 2016’s critically-acclaimed For All We Know. The record spawned popular single ‘Bad Blood’, and earned her third-place on BBC’s Sound of 2016 roundup and nominations at the MOBO and BRIT Awards.
Two years later, we speak to the 30-year-old singer on the cusp of releasing her second album, simply titled Saturn. And though it makes a cool name on its own, the reasons behind naming can literally be found in the stars – as she was inspired by the astrological occurrence of the ‘Saturn return’, when the planet Saturn transits back to the exact same spot it was at the point of a person’s birth.
For NAO, it happened around her 29th year – and it came amid a lot of big changes in her life. ‘Usually something big breaks down that makes you have to grow up. For me, it was a relationship, and I lost my home because of it,’ she explains during our friendly phone conversation.
‘I was touring around the world, and my career was doing something completely different to what my personal life was doing – career was going up, and my personal life was going down. Loads of my friends who are a similar age to me were going through the same thing as well – so everything in my life was a catalyst for this record.’
With singles ‘Another Lifetime’ and ‘Make It Out Alive’ already impressing fans, there’s a real hunger for what NAO will deliver, especially now that she feels like she’s fully entered a new stage in her life. Experimental and exciting, NAO also tries out new things on this record, like rapping (‘I’ve never done it before – I’m excited for what the response will be!). In part, her openness towards trying new things comes from her spiritual tendencies:
‘I’ve always been spiritual, I’m all about energy and vibrations and consciousness and I do feel as if the stars have something to do with it. They must have an effect on us, just as the sun does, just as the moon does.’
But as positive and as passionate as she is about her career, and what new life changes can bring for the future, it doesn’t stop her from being real about the less desirable parts of her exciting job – the exhaustion.
‘Humans aren’t built to travel between two different time zones in a week; humans aren’t built to live on no sleep. When you are travelling and performing, and doing these amazing things, you’re not really experiencing them, because you feel so exhausted.
‘There’s a common misconception where people think it’s one wild party, fame, and sex, and drugs, and money – and that might have been the case back in the Sixties, but I think now, things have changed. For me… I’m definitely not getting enough sex, I’ll say that – and there’s no drugs! And fame’s not something I’ve ever asked for, but I do get a lot of tiredness, and exhaustion.’
And it’s this honest acknowledgment of the toll that constant performance and travel that has been a major part of bringing her to the place where she could release Saturn – as she finds rest to be the most important thing for harnessing her creativity.
‘I find that if I keep going, and writing and writing for days on end, I get stuck,’ she admits. ‘Taking breaks, and taking days off – which I’ve only started doing this year – has been great. I rest my mind, I rest my body, and I come back with fresh ears. It’s been my tool to get me to this second album.’
Having pursued music in a variety of forms for at least a decade, it’s warming that NAO has the ability to fully live her dream of being a recording artist, and having it be her full-time occupation – it’s hard enough to make money from music even without the industry’s leaning towards colourist ideals working against you. With charts and industry buzz centring on the likes of Jorja Smith, Raye and Mabel – and with Boo’d Up singer Ella Mai breaking out in the States – darker-skinned female artists seem to be fighting for their piece of the pie. NAO credits the internet for being the marketing tool that gave her the boost before record labels did.
‘I’m really grateful for the internet, and SoundCloud, and the industry not having to decide whether or not to push me – because my music found its way on its own,’ she says. ‘I was selling out tours and getting to the top of music playlists by myself. I had to prove it by myself. Labels wouldn’t sign me. I had to sell out tours, fund it all by myself before they were like, ‘Oh s–t! Maybe you are good.’ We did have to carve out a space for ourselves, but slowly it’s changing. No shade to light-skinned black women, as well – they’re beautiful, but I’m hoping that the world gives us dark-skinned girls a chance to catch up.’
We’re hoping for the same – the time for NAO to shine, brighter than ever, is now.
NAO’s second album, Saturn, is out now. Her world tour starts in Japan in December, before hitting Europe in March 2019. Follow her on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and SoundCloud: @thisnao
