The Brilliant Producer And Chameleon Fatima Al Qadiri Won't Stunt For Your Sake
At a North Carolina nightclub in late May, a woman named Shaneera presided onstage, coyly flicking fake, nut-colored hair over her shoulders. Her eyes, super-sized by drag makeup, were visible from the back of the club as she chanted short spells in Arabic, while her music — all pandemonium and pummel — rattled the venue like a weak earthquake. Despite the diabolical display, when Shaneera looked out into the crowd, her gaze felt unexpectedly tender. At the end of her set, credits rolling behind her, she bowed, removed her wig and laughed herself offstage.
Shaneera is the latest incarnation of the Kuwait-born, Berlin-based U.K. bass producer Fatima Al Qadiri, a fascinating, often arch and wildly original artist who architects sound into concept-driven albums that bang as hard as they thoughtfully explore social theses she has, at least partially, retrofitted for the dance floor. For the last six years, these have revolved around the idea of the inexpressible – the what's-lost-in-translation – via sonic sleights-of-hand.
Take , a debilitating album that looked to recreate the specific, ineffable agony of mass cultural outrage toward law enforcement by sampling the exact type of sound cannon that police in Ferguson, Mo. used to control rioters. , released a year prior, presented an "Orientalist's vision of China" through made-up Mandarin phrases and clichéd pan-Asian chords. Her first EP, , managed to simulate the terror of Operation Desert Storm by reconfiguring the sound effects of a first-person shooter game. Her latest, , builds upon pop star mythologies by way of a she-devil avatar, a figure
