Nardean has a vivid memory from when she was 13, maybe 14.
“I was singing in a shower and imagining things. Very specifically, I can remember I was imagining I was on stage in a stadium. And there were 80 thousand people watching me”, she recalls.
But back then, she brushed off that vision. It was so far removed from her life and what she thought was possible at the time. She didn’t even consider being a musician as an actual option for a career. Until she took a course at uni that made her question her reality.
I don’t know how I ended up on the Elefant Traks mailing list. But a few weeks ago, I received a press release from Urthboy‘s label, announcing a song, “Follow Thru”, by an artist I’d never heard of before. And it sounded great!
The release stated the muso had decided to take her career “to the next level” by moving to London, where I’m spending the summer, too. So one thing led to another. And after a few DMs, we met to talk about the upcoming single and everything that had led to this point in the artist’s life.
In her bio on streaming services, Nardean (pronounced as “Nar-deen”, which is her birth name) writes about herself in the first person. I find it authentic and appealing, so I tell her that when we catch up at a cafe in North London.
“OMG, I keep saying I need to change that”, she replies, laughing. I encourage her not to do it. Because, in today’s “polished” world, it’s rather eye-catching and original.
Her life story and the road to being a hip-hop/R&B artist are equally captivating.
She was born in Sydney to an Egyptian family who raised their kids traditionally and fairly strictly. She went to a private Coptic Orthodox school, attended church regularly, and only had her family around in those days.
Her parents had a simple plan for her: study medicine, law or engineering at uni, get a job, get married, have kids, and pray every Sunday. But that practically meant that, until year six, Nardean didn’t really interact with “non-Egyptians”. And when she started a public high school, she quickly experienced “the clash of cultures”.
She tells me a story from the first week in the new school. She met a girl wearing a head bandana. Nardean was so shocked to see it that she asked her, “Aren’t you going to get in trouble?” To her surprise, no teacher had anything against it. It was the first time she noticed things were very different outside her community.
“As a ‘third culture kid’, you’re so disconnected from the two cultures. You’re not Australian, but you’re not really Arab, either.”
Nardean
Nardean counts herself as part of a social phenomenon. “As a ‘third culture kid’, you’re so disconnected from the two cultures. You’re not Australian, but you’re not really Arab, either”, she explains. Yet, you try hard to fit into both, sometimes at a very high emotional cost.
But, at the same time, she’s grateful to her parents for cultivating the Egyptian heritage at home. And there’s a good reason for that, too.
Her father is a smart, well-read and educated man with a few post-grad degrees. He worked for the government back in Egypt. Unfortunately, when he arrived in Australia, none of his academic accomplishments counted for anything. So he spent decades working in a library in Sydney.
Needless to say, he was determined his daughter, the only one born in Australia, would speak the family’s native language. Nardean was too young to remember it, but she’s been told he used to read her bedtime stories in Arabic.
Today, it helps her connect with her Egyptian identity. You can even hear the influences in some of her records, like The Architect EP from 2022. She also partially raps in Arabic in her song “aux cord”.
Another groundbreaking moment in Nardean’s life happened when she was at uni. She was studying for a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and drama. “Not a doctor, you know. A disappointment to my family”, she adds, half-jokingly, half-seriously.
Apart from the main courses, students were encouraged to take additional, voluntary subjects: one “people” and one “planet” unit. For the latter, she chose ‘History of the World’ – an overview of everything that’s transpired from the Big Bang to our modern times.
“Suddenly, it started to make much more sense to me that the world had been created through complex chemical and physical reactions than by a man in the sky”, she summarises that learning process.
It was that course precisely that opened her mind a lot. A six-month period of serendipity followed. She started questioning everything she’d been taught, especially in the religious context. She was 21.
At about the same time, Nardean began dating a guy from work who was a hip-hop artist. One day, she went to a show where he performed and saw a female rap on stage for the first time. “I literally had full-body goosebumps”, she recalls. And, at that moment, she decided it was something she wanted to do “for the rest of her days”.
“[Music] is a skill like anything else, you know? You have to practise it to be… decent.“
Nardean
So I can’t help but ask how her parents took her decision to become a musician.
She recalls that, at the beginning, they would say, “Get a job. What are you doing with your life?”. They thought she was going through a phase. She would also often call home to borrow money because she was struggling in those days. That made them worry even more.
She confesses she felt very resentful towards her parents for a long time. And she wishes she hadn’t started making music so late in her life. “Because it’s a skill like anything else, you know? You have to practise it to be… decent. If I’d started having classes at like six, I would be so fucking good right now”, she tells me with a hint of bitterness in her voice.
But as she got older, she started seeing it from a different point of view. She realises now that, as immigrants, her parents just wanted a better life for their offspring in a country with more possibilities. So they did what they could and what they thought was best at the time. And you can’t blame them for that.
Especially now that she’s making it work, they definitely come around more. They’re proud of her.
Living in a foreign country, she still calls her parents when she gets homesick or is trying to figure stuff out. And her mum always comforts her, saying, “You’re strong. Anything you set your mind to, you can achieve. I’ve seen you do it. You got this”.
This approval means a lot to Nardean. “And maybe if my upbringing had been different, I wouldn’t have worked so hard to achieve what I have”, she adds on a positive note.
She’s a self-taught musician. After finishing her English degree, she did a year-long TAFE course, ‘Diploma of Music Performance’, which introduces the basics of music keys, harmony, etc.
She’s always been hanging out with people better than her and watched them do their thing, too. Luckily, the amazing Australian R&B, soul and hip-hop musician ALPHAMAMA took her under her wing at some stage.
I ask her about the move to London. Nardean tells me it was a combination of factors.
First and foremost, even though she was doing everything she could professionally back home, she kept hitting a ceiling. “I know the music is good, but there is no market for it”, she claims. She doesn’t do pop, electronic music, indie or surf rock, which seem to be the predominant genres in the Land Down Under these days.
According to Nardean, Australia is also a little bubble. People don’t experiment or do something different as much as in other countries, like the UK, which is also her aspiration.
And even though the quality of Australian music is world-class, the local market feels somewhat limiting. It’s just not able to absorb so many artists, all trying to break through in the same, exact way.
Strangely, she also felt too comfortable and bored in her country. “I had my nice little house and my studio, a 20-min walk away. I’d wake up, go to the gym, go to my studio, do stuff, go home, hang out, see the same people. It was all the same. Nothing was inspiring me anymore. I just needed a challenge”, she tells me.
“I know the music is good, but there is no market for it [in Australia].”
Nardean
On the other hand, not getting the recognition and not moving up had a profound effect on Nardean. It made her question her skills and ability as an artist. She would doubt herself a lot, “Am I shit? Is my sense of self inflated? Or are people just not seeing the quality?”
Before moving to London, for about three to four months, she wasn’t in a good place. She was feeling depressed, and unhappy and would cry a lot.
She remembers almost quitting music because she wasn’t where she wanted to be at that stage. “I actually forgot all about it now”, she says emotionally.
All those things were catalysts for Nardean’s decision to move to London. She was hoping to find new opportunities and collaborations in the British metropolis. Especially since many artists that inspire her personally are based in the UK capital as well.
She arrived in London in April 2023 “with no high expectations”. It was the last push to see what happens. She thought she’d be a good manager, for example, because she also embraces the business side of music. She assumed she’d look for a job in this field.
Since coming to the UK, her mindset has changed.“I don’t want to come across as someone who doesn’t struggle here, emotionally, from time to time. But I do get many more opportunities and affirmations in London”, she emphasises.
She feels good after walking out of almost every creative session. She also gets a lot of praise for her professionalism and skills from her collaborators. Just the other day, she received “the nicest message” from a girl whose EP she’s executively producing.
So Nardean already knows the move was a good decision. The Universe is definitely telling her, “Keep doing what you’re doing. You’re on the right track.”
What about her music then?
She’s just released “Follow Thru”, a song about coming to terms with her personality and getting things done at the same time.
“I struggle with these two different personalities”, she reveals. “One is loving, generous, and caring, the other one – stubborn, determined, ruthless.” And that dichotomy shows in her music. Sometimes, she wants to write ballads. Sometimes, she’s into angry songs. One day, it’s all about how great she is, and the next – how sad she feels.
She wanted to pay tribute to both sides, acknowledge that she’s flawed, and recognise that not everything in the world has to be perfect.
There’s an interesting story behind how “Follow Thru” was written.
“I think that the songs that are meant to be finished, get finished”.
Nardean
“Songs are like puzzles. The pieces come to you one at a time – some in half an hour, some in a few weeks or months even. I think that the songs that are meant to be finished, get finished”, she tells me.
For example, this particular track is older than her last EP, The Architect. She just had the beat, chorus and first verse, that she’d written in a session with Hamley, a Melbourne based producer. And she always liked it because the chords and the entire vibe of the song are cool. She just couldn’t finish it.
When she sent one of the first versions to Elefant Traks, they didn’t love the last line of the chorus. So she tried playing around with it. At one of the listening sessions, the label’s A&R suggested she should switch the outro to a house beat. She was unsure of that. So it just sat there for a while.
A few months later, she revisited the song. She had the idea to use a garage groove halfway through it. And “it came out sick”. She also changed the original key because one of the lines she wanted to do in a verse was too low for her register. “Because even when you’re rapping, there’s a certain melody and tones there”, she gives me a quick lesson on music.
“Follow Thru” ends on a voice memo, with a male cheering her on. It’s another original element in the song. She shares with me that it was a message from her friend Chazza, who’s from London but lives in Australia. She shows me the text on her phone, beaming. Her reply was “This is 100% getting thrown on the end of a track”.
The single is part of a new, themed EP, The Remedy. It’s a 7-track body of work recorded with a band.
Nardean sounds very excited when she tells me she’s never been happier and prouder of anything in her life. That’s because she did everything she wanted to do on this record. It wasn’t to please anybody or have great songs for the radio.
“Every time I released something in the past, I always wanted validation. With this one, I know it’s fucking good. It’s good for me. And that’s what matters. And if it can help anyone or make a positive change, that’s literally all I care about”, she adds with a lot of conviction in her voice.
Interestingly, though, The Remedy was mostly recorded in Australia when she was experiencing the lowest point in her life.
Those final months before the move to London were a wild ride. Everything needed to be ready: recording the band, picking the takes, doing the main and backing vocals, mixing, etc. (Only the masters were done when she was already in the UK.)
Additionally, she was working a retail job before leaving to save up more for the upcoming adventure. So she was physically exhausted and emotionally drained.
“If ‘Follow Thru’ can help anyone or make a positive change, that’s literally all I care about.”
Nardean
But at the same time, it was the one thing that gave her life. “I can feel the shittiest, but once I start making music and collaborating with other people, I forget about it, I get in the flow. So when we first started playing it together, I cried”, she admits.
She can’t wait to do shows again and play songs from the new record. Because all that counts for Nardean is the connection with people. “I just want everyone who’s meant to hear it, to hear it”.
She also confesses it would be great to sell enough tickets to bring the band along for the tour. The vibe and energy on stage are just incomparable then.
In the last few years, she’s also learned another thing. At the beginning, she always thought, “I’m either Beyonce or I’m starving”. But those are the extremes. There’s a whole spectrum of things a musician can do to earn a living, like syncing stuff, writing for ads, doing voiceover work, and producing for other artists.
There’s still a part of her that aspires to perform on a stadium stage with 80 thousand people watching.
“If my record went viral, I wouldn’t be mad about it, you know?”, she jokes. “But at the end of the day, I’m just so happy and grateful to be my own boss and do what I’m doing. I make music most of the time. What more could I want?”
Listen to Nardean’s new single “Follow Thru” on your favourite streaming platform now.
Check out some more interviews with Australian artists:
Singer-songwriter and disability advocate Eliza Hull proudly portrays herself in the “Running Underwater” music video. Artist interview
A music producer once told Eliza Hull that she shouldn’t walk in her music videos. Because if she did, nobody would listen to her songs. So she hid her disability from the industry and her fans for a very long time. But enough is enough. And in the clip to her new song, she’s pushing…
How Perth-based alternative musician RinRin went from shy guitarist to front-stage protagonist for her 2023 East Coast tour of Australia. Artist interview
What do Avril Lavigne, Babymetal and Paramore have in common? For starters, all those acts play some rock music derivative: pop-punk/post-grunge, Kawaii metal/J-rock and alternative rock/emo, respectively. Secondly, women take centre stage in each one of them. And lastly, they’re all RinRin’s most important influences. If you haven’t heard of RinRin yet, it’s high time…
Melbourne stalwart, RJ Andrew, shares “The Fates” – the first ‘cinematic ballad’ from his new solo project. Artist interview
I met RJ Andrew a few years ago in very non-musical circumstances. I was looking for a place to live and answered his advert. While the house-sharing arrangement didn’t work out, we had a good chat about other things that day. And we’ve kept in touch on and off ever since. In the years I’ve…
Silly McWiggles blog & podcast 