Lahore-born, multi-hyphenate ZAINAB has just released her debut EP, Canal View, via Ninja Tune’s Technicolour imprint, alongside visuals for lead single “Azadi”.
The new record draws on sounds from the Global South, South Asia and the Arab world, filtered through the energy of New York house and dance music into something distinctly her own. It includes previous singles “Jadoo”, written and sung in her native Urdu, “Her Eyes”, crafted around a jubilant sample of Hamid Al Shaeri, “Ayewah!” with Tony Quattro, and most recent single “Banglahore” featuring Surya Sen.
Speaking on the EP, ZAINAB explained: “It’s locally influenced, but globally oriented. I see the EP as an amalgamation of Lahore and New York: looking back and forth between both places and asking what those sounds become when they come together.
Canal View is named after the neighbourhood where I was born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan. To me, it symbolises a view from a specific place: my perspective as someone who grew up at the edge of town, looking out at the world and being influenced by so many different things. In a sense, the EP is my perspective on all the music I grew up consuming in Lahore, and then later as an immigrant in New York.”
ZAINAB will also support Channel Tres on his North American tour this September, and comes off the back of hosting an EP launch party at NYC’s Public Records to celebrate the release. The DJ-producer has already had a standout year live, including a packed set at London’s EartH for Dialled In Festival and a B2B with DJ Habibeats at Coachella’s DoLab that drew one of the stage’s biggest crowds of the weekend, alongside a sold-out residency at Public Records under her own Azadi umbrella.
Listen to Canal View below, and watch the official video for “Azadi” here.