Nabihah Iqbal

London-based ethnomusicologist, DJ, and songwriter Nabihah Iqbal crafts both left-field dance tracks and dreamy indie pop. Under the alias Throwing Shade she first turned out abstract pop alongside deep house, only to drop the pseudonym in 2017 and issue her debut album Weighing of the Heart, a collection colored by post-punk. After a burglary emptied her studio and halted work on a new project, she resurfaced in 2023 with Dreamer, an album that moved between blissful dance numbers and meditative ambient pop.

Having completed studies in ethnomusicology, Iqbal earned an MPhil in African history from the University of Cambridge. In 2013 she launched a free-form NTS Radio show that surveyed sounds from across the globe. Her first release as Throwing Shade, the single “Mystic Places,” appeared on Kassem Mosse’s Ominira imprint. Further EPs followed on No Pain in Pop and Happy Skull, and she received a commission to compose a response to the 2014 Turner Prize. She also contributed vocals to SOPHIE’s “Lemonade.” By 2016 a deal with Ninja Tune brought the club-focused House of Silk EP.

Setting the Throwing Shade name aside, Iqbal began assembling her debut full-length in 2017, writing, recording, and producing everything inside her London studio while steering the music toward alternative pop fused with electronics. The advance single “Something More” preceded Weighing of the Heart, which arrived that December. Several years of work on a follow-up were undone in 2020 when intruders took her gear; she salvaged what remained and issued the fragments as Blue Magic Gentle Magic before starting an entirely new record. Featuring harmonium, acoustic guitar, sitar, live drums, and synths, Dreamer emerged in 2023 as an introspective, emotionally rich set that spans meditative drone, driving post-punk, and ecstatic house.