Interview: Nao Talks Being Vulnerable on Debut Album "For All We Know"

Complex AU chats with East London singer-songwriter Nao about her debut LP "For All We Know"

East London's Nao is an artist you've undoubtedly heard infiltrating FM airwaves and populating curated playlists, but might not recognise in a line up of the usual suspects. Having never appeared in her own videos, and only recently blessing us with more than just her hands on her cover art, Nao's aesthetic might seem heavily calculated at first. In reality, the shroud of mystery surrounding her seems a result of her unfamiliarity with the spotlight more than anything else.

Until a few years ago, she was playing gigs as a backing singer for a number of UK bands, as well as performing as a key member of a capella group The Boxettes. Before that, she was teaching South London school kids how to sing, and studying vocal jazz herself at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

Having found inspiration listening widely to the US hip-hop, UK grime, and jungle bumping in her family home, it's now hard to corral her sound into a genre. Nao herself has been inclined to describe it as "wonky funk", which really only tells half the story, and the blanket "future R&B" tag that so many artists in 2016 are being painted with would be a haphazard brushstroke here.

Her first solo releases came in the form of two EPs–So Good and February 15–in the space of less than a year, and collaborations with UK bass juggernauts Disclosure and British upstart Mura Masa would come soon after. Following that, Nao was nominated for the BBC Sound of 2016 prize, being named in third place at the start of the year.

Now, with those two short form projects under her belt, the singer-songwriter decided it was about time to release something longer, more fully-formed, and give more of her music–and by extension herself–to fans than ever before. With the release of her debut LP For All We Know set for July 29, Complex AU sat down with Nao to talk the highs and lows of stepping out on your own, being too hands-on and the ever-mysterious A. K. and Jai Paul.

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The album is called For All We Know. What’s the story behind the title?

For All We Know is a few things to me. First of all, I studied jazz and it just became one of my favourite jazz standards when I was studying it, and theres’ a version of “For All We Know” sung by a very old school soul singer called Donnie Hathaway. And, it's a very beautiful song, his version is, it always brings me to tears. It's probably one of the only songs that does that. 

It's kind of about living for today, which I know sounds super cliché, but I feel like that's an important idea for me. One of the lyrics says "so love me love me tonight, tomorrow was made for some, tomorrow may never come, for all we know". It’s that idea that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed and we all kind of take it for granted – well, I do. We have to sort of go for it today, and try to find happiness in what we have in the moment, which is kind of what this album's about as well.  You know, I could work on it for years and maybe it will never be perfect, I’m not sure. But what do I want to say today and can I be proud of it, put it out, and then leave it to the gods to see what happens, basically? And that's kind of why I called it For All We Know – for all we know, anything could happen.


You’ve said you were excited to give fans an album because EPs seemed like they were never quite enough. What’s been the difference between working on those shorter projects and taking on a full project like this one?

Well, albums are just longer [laughs]. You just get to explore more sounds and more aesthetics and just be even more musical. EPs are kind of like a snapshot, they're kind of just a third of an album, so you're trying to pull together your best songs. With an album you kind of get to put on, you know, maybe they're not like your strongest songs, maybe they're not like your singles, but maybe they're songs you love for other reasons. So, I really was excited to work on an album, I always thought I'd be quite an album artist over anything else, so it was quite important to me.    


In your previous work, you weren’t quite at the forefront: doing back up singing, being part of a group. Is this project the most vulnerable thing you’ve done so far?

Yeah, 100%. It's so vulnerable in so many ways. Obviously, you're releasing a part of yourself because you're telling your story through music and you're opening up for other people to come in. All the decisions, all the stressful moments are on you ultimately. You have a team around you, but all the decisions come down to you. So, if you get something right, that's great. But if you get something wrong, you really feel it [laughs]. And the highs are very high and the lows are very low.

So I definitely feel the vulnerability of being the face and the voice of my own project. I feel like I'm learning to detach myself from it, but also at the same time I'm not letting it spill over into my personal space as well. Because, it is my job, but being an artist can become your life if you don’t switch off for a moment and just be with your family. To not be the singer, just be with your family, be with your friends, and turn off your emails, stop the social media, and just disconnect for a moment just to keep your sanity, basically.  

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Tell us about some of the songs on the album you’re most excited for fans to hear.

I always kind of feel like the songs I put out already from the album are tasters. That's really important to say they're tasters and not singles, because with my EPs as well, I wanted people to decide what their favourite song is. Lots of people on my last EP [February 15] liked “Inhale Exhale”, or some people really love “Apple Cherry”, and I kind of like that – it's open to you. That's what I wanted from the album, but I appreciated that I needed to put some songs out beforehand for people to know what to expect.

I think that some songs will radiate with different people, but for me, my favourite song on the album is actually the most melancholy – it’s called “Blue Wine”. I love that song and it's a really interesting journey for me musically, but I appreciate that might not be the one that resonates with other people because it's not something you're going to put on on a summer's day [laughs].

So maybe a song like “Happy” might connect, or maybe a song called “Do You Want Me” which is also one that my band all really love. They just heard the album and they're learning it, and they always pull out this one, but they may love it for their own reasons. Maybe it's because they just enjoy playing the parts, I have no idea basically [laughs]. But I'm really interested to see what the fans tell me, what my audience tell me is their favourite one – we'll see in a couple of weeks.


Aside from singing, it seems like you’re very involved in putting together the beats for all your projects. Just how hands-on are you with all the production?

Yeah, probably too hands-on for someone who's not a producer. I often start ideas by myself, and I’ll be in the studio just kind of jamming and improvising. But often you get a bit bored or you start repeating ideas, so it’s really important to open it up to collaboration and to invite another voice. Another producer just to come in and be like: "okay, this song really excites me, I've got so many ideas for this", which is obviously a relief. Because after all, when you're on your own, you’re just banging your head against the wall like: “ah, I have no idea where this song is supposed to go!” [laughs]. So, it was really important to the project, but also, I appreciate that I was quite hands-on with it myself.


It seems like all your work with GRADES–the producer behind "Bad Blood", "Fool To Love", "Girlfriend" and more–is radio smash material. Can you tell us about that working relationship?

Grades is a really talented producer. It's really funny, because when it was first suggested to me–“do you want to work with Grades?”–I heard his music, and it was like, more house beats. And I was like, “um, I don't understand how it's going to come together”. But I'm really happy that I gave it a go and a chance. What Grades is really fantastic at is making sounds; he's really good at getting what I'm trying to say and just recreating that in a musical way. Some producers as well, they tend to put their own sound on your music which can be tricky if you're quite like me, very hands on. Grades is very good at not putting his stamp on it and doing exactly what's right for the music.

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“Trophy” is another collaboration with A. K. Paul. Your previous track with him "So Good" is a jam; was it a given that you guys would have to work on something together for your album, just based on your chemistry alone?

With A. K. Paul, nothing is a given [laughs]. Him and his brother Jai, they’re very elusive, so they'll be around one minute and then disappear the next. So, I didn't actually know whether we'd get to write together again. But, the stars aligned and we had a day or two in the studio and we came out with “Trophies”. Which was really nice, I think, to have started the journey with him and then to for this debut album, come back. So, I reckon that will happen every time probably, once every couple of years we'll have a session and that song will end up on an album somewhere [laughs]. But he's wicked and he was really integral to me finding my sound actually, in the very early days.


You went for an early Weeknd-esque mysterious vibe with your music, not really revealing too much of yourself for a long time. Was that something you planned out from the beginning to generate curiosity, or was it more about simply wanting to be able to keep to yourself?

It was a reflection of my personality. I feel like, I guess I'd say I've learned about my music with my EPs quite publicly. I didn't know what I wanted to say when I started So Good, I was just kind of working it out. Also, I didn't know how I wanted to present myself, so using my hands was a way of just holding back for a minute until I did work out what I wanted to say. Funny enough, I still don't know [laughs]. I felt like using hands was a way of making it about the music, and not making it about me. Hands were a way of demonstrating that it was kind of homemade as well; you know, I wasn't in massive shiny studios with wicked mics, a lot of it was just made at home, or in my studio and close to home.

And now that I’m growing as an artist as well, and I'm understanding what my audience want from me and also what I'm able to give, I appreciate that I can reveal a bit more of myself in photos. But then again, the album artwork is still not putting me in the centre of the picture and I'm playing around with negative space. I'm in the bottom corner of it, and the rest of it is just space, because again obviously it's about me because I'm making the music – but also I want it to be about the music more. I just like the idea of negative space. I haven’t actually been in any music videos yet [laughs]. So, I guess I’m still working it out.         

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