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Nasreem Toorabally (Naz)
Nasreem Toorabally was interviewed by Amal Malik for the Museum of Youth Culture, and talks about her early influences and discovery of alternative music, growing up in Barnet (London)
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About
Nasreem Toorabally (Naz) grew up in the London borough of Barnet. She discovered alternative music through her dad’s CD collection, as well as music videos. This inspired her to perform and express herself artistically. Naz discusses her enjoyment of showcasing her alternative interests, which led her to the creation of WEIRDO zine. WEIRDO offers the representation she felt was missing in existing zines.
This interview was conducted as part of the ‘Emergence of Digital Cultures’ project, led by the Museum of Youth Culture. Amal Malik conducted the interview, and the full collection of project interviews is available online with the Museum. The Museum of Youth Culture is the world’s first museum dedicated to the story of teenagers and young people, collecting the scenes, styles and social movements forged by youth over the last century.
Listen to Nasreem talking about her childhood influence growing up in Barnet (London).
Interview conducted by Amal Malik.
NT: Yeah, in Barnet, there's not really many places to hang out. But I remember being younger, I used to ride my bike a lot in the local areas, we’d go to sort of local parks. In Barnet, there's this sort of famous well that's sort of like in...yeah, it's a well like in a house, and it used to be an area where we used to hang out as kids quite a lot. I don't know why that sticks in my mind, but it does. And then I guess as I grew up and I was allowed to venture further away from home, Camden Town is really where I spent a lot of time with friends. And, yeah, as I said, sort of exploring the markets. I even took my mum with me once or twice. I remember this one time when she bought me like a studded choker. She thought it was the weirdest thing ever, because she kind of associates them with dogs wearing them. So, yeah, so that was really weird. But she bought it for me, which I really appreciated at the time. And it was kind of cool to sort of bring her to an area that I liked hanging out with my emo friends growing up.
AM: So it's just kind of revealing a different side of yourself that maybe she just hadn't seen before?
NT: For sure...
AM: And just getting to know you a bit more.
NT: Yeah. And also, her sort of supporting that as well. I've always been quite open with my family about sort of different aspects of my identity. And it was cool to just, yeah, bring her into it in that way, which is kind of fun, especially like a 14-year-old wanting something, an accessory like that that my mum was probably quite alarmed about at the time, but she kind of went along with it.
AM: Yeah, and that's really wholesome, that's really nice.
NT: Yeah.
AM: Kind of touching on your introduction to emo culture, different maybe subcultures and popular trends, do you kind of remember like the first time you were introduced to that sort of thing? Was it like online? Was it through magazines? Yeah?
NT: Yeah. Yeah. So, my first introduction I suppose is probably through my dad. I've men...I mentioned this quite a lot, but it's...it...I always...whenever I'm thinking about what the first introduction is, it probably is that sort of car journeys with my dad. So, he used to go to like Saturday football sessions with his friends and stuff, and I used to go...my sister and I used to go along with him. So, on the car journey from Barnet to Tottenham, he used to play all sorts of CDs, and some of the bands would include like Metallica, Papa Roach, all sort...all sorts of bands, but those are kind of the two that sort of stick out in my head. And I feel like that was kind of a gateway to other types of music, sort of, in the alternative scene broadly. And then I guess when I was in...when I entered secondary school, that's when I started meeting other people who had similar interests as me. So, I met one girl who was really into sort of the online communities, especially sort of the fanfic community. At the time, one band that was really popular was My Chemical Romance. And she used to be really into writing fanfic and reading fanfic about them. And I guess meeting her...and she was Pakistani as well, so meeting her really sort of opened my eyes to lots of other bands and music, and other parts of sort of the emo subculture at the time. And that’s how I discovered other bands like Paramore, who are really big in the community as well. And yeah, and then that sort of led to lots of other bands and sort of, yeah, delving into it a bit more. But actually thinking...just actually, if I go back a little bit further, another sort of moment that really sticks out is, I think I must have been around 10 years old at the time. My mum gave me her old like...I don't know if you remember those old like really boxy TVs, just like one of those small...
AM: Yeah.
NT: Yeah. And I think she upgraded to one that had like a video player as part of it or something. So my sister and I had that in our room, and I used to watch, I don't know if it was like Top 40 UK or something like that, there was a music segment on TV. And I remember when 'Bring Me to Life' by Evanescence was in the charts, like the mainstream charts, which was so cool. And I remember seeing that, and being like amazed by it, and being really interested in that kind of music as well. And ended up actually singing that song in my Year 6 assembly as well, which is really a random thing for a 10-year-old to do. And, yeah, I feel like that also was kind of a gateway to like nu metal as well, eventually discovering bands like Linkin Park, Korn and other similar bands.
Listen to Nasreem talking about creating WEIRDO zine, as a place of representation for people of South Asian descent.
NT: Yeah, so WEIRDO zine started because I kind of got tired, and I don't know...I can't tell you exactly why, because I don't know, because it's sort of something that had been going on in the back of my mind that people of South Asian descent are not really represented when it comes to the alternative scene. And I noticed that the Black community were much better at building sort of those communities, specifically in the alternative scene. So, if I would...so, when I was looking at sort of the online spaces for alternative people of colour, quite often they'd be American-focused and/or largely communities of Black people. So I was like...and I was really inspired by what they were doing, especially with other platforms like Afropunk. And I wanted to find something similar for people of South Asian descent. And I couldn't find it. And I guess I just wanted to bring everyone together in one place. And this is also where I'm saying where I kind of felt that I didn't really explore the online world as much as I could have, growing up. Because I kind of realized as I was creating it that a lot of people were already connected to each other in some way or another, so you know, by following each other on Instagram or another social media platform. So then in 2019, after discovering the world of zines, which obviously have been around for many, many years, I didn't find a zine that represented people like me, so I decided to create one. And now WEIRDO has kind of changed from being sort of just a print publication to being more of an online community. So we now have a Discord server where people can join and meet other people of South Asian descent who are interested in similar things that they are. And it's really, really cool to see people connect and like working together on things, or just like supporting each other on whatever their creative output is. And I'm excited to kind of see how it grows. And I guess also right now, in terms of the South Asian community, there seems to be this increase in sort of people of South Asian descent in the arts and in music being platformed a lot more, which was something that I wasn't really seeing when growing up. There’s only...I think you can probably count on one hand sort of the main South Asian people you’d see on TV in terms of music when I was growing up. And I guess I wanted to create something that gave more of us more opportunities, especially as I'm a musician as well, and I want to see more of us succeeding and getting those, you know, big opportunities that other people are getting.
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