Rhythm Section Live: Nayana Iz, Qendresa & CLBRKS, London

Nayana IZ biography

NAYANA IZ (“eye-zee”, her first name means beautiful eyes in Hindi) was raised in North London but born in India. After a childhood of wishing she lived in her motherland, the English capital might have grown on the 19-year-old musician but she still has big plans to relocate in the future. Though still in her teens, NTS guest host Nayana, who just came off tour with Irish rapper Kojaque, says that she feels at least 100,000 years old. Must be all that hard work she’s putting into life, music and the impressive list of extracurricular activities that we’ll get into later. Naturally drawn to making music from day dot, Nayana evolved from playing jazz to joining an indie-pop band before eventually settling on hip-hop, which she discovered via one of her all-time faves, MF DOOM. Ask Nayana -- who has just been named one of BBC Asian Network's Future Sounds for 2020 -- about her current sound and it’s all a bit ambiguous. “It’s just what I feel,” she says, “and I’m always feeling something different”. Whatever she’s doing, it’s working. Following in the footsteps of her incredible grandmother, a skilled Manipuri singer and sword dancer, Nayana fuses all of these cultural influences and lands on something that feels fully representative of who she is.

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