Sung in both English and Arabic, and covering most genres on the way, Nxdia’s ‘I Promise No One’s Watching’ is as affirming as it is fun.

‘I Promise No One’s Watching’ – Nxdia

About a minute into Nxdia’s debut mixtape, I Promise No One’s Watching, there’s a line that causes a total tone shift that you never quite recover from.

“I feel like I might give birth to something very beautiful.”

It’s a recording of a close friend of Nxdia (who uses all pronouns), from a day out that she remembers fondly: A day spent picnicking with friends on a hill, reminiscing and making memories was perfectly memorialized: “It was the first good day I’d had in a very long time.”

It also captures the album perfectly.

I Promise No One’s Watching is an eclectic masterpiece, lurching from guitar heavy tracks to bona fide club bangers, never stopping in one spot long enough to be considered the dominant style. This sense of mayhem is held together by Nxdia, who’s singular voice and shameless honesty is the anchor that brings the songs together. Like most of us, Nxdia has spent the first few years of adulthood unlearning all she took in before, building a much more authentic person in the process.

“I don’t think anyone’s unique in a feeling, in terms of, like, while I can never have the same life experience as you, or you me, I think there’s feelings we’ve all definitely felt and overlapped in a very intrinsic way, especially feelings that we might have thought we were weird for feeling, or we were the only ones who felt. And I’m so tired of that isolation, that apathy, that whole kind of ‘you don’t owe anyone anything, it’s every man for himself.’ I’m just kind of like, no, I want to care about people, god damn it. And I want to have people around me, I want to feel supported, I want like when people are talking to me and I’m talking to them, that will really see each other and really understand each other.”

This shines on I Promise No One’s Watching. 

Take standout “Boy Clothes,” an ear worm that also burrows a message deep into your skull. Opening with a low, husky voice that sounds like she’s doing something she shouldn’t be doing, it soon becomes clear that she’s tackling a much bigger taboo than cheating.

I want his magazines, I want his video games
And I want all the other boys to call me by my name
I use his V05, I wear his aftershave
I feel fantastic and I can’t behave
In my boy clothes, boy clothes

It’s fun, catchy and a great view into the way her mind works.

This is also apparent on “Nothing At All,” a song about about knowing not a damn thing – and loving it! “I just feel like I genuinely, perpetually walk around with massive question mark over my head that everyone else can see,” she says with a laugh. It’s tongue in cheek at times, but also loves the questioning that comes with growing up. It’s an understanding that you won’t always understand, and that’s ok.

I’ve been in conversations
Just wonderin’ if everyone knows something
I don’t think I keep up with you all
Just wanna feel involved, umm
Tell you something true, I’m at a loss
My brain feels like brand new, no extra cost
Mish aarfa ay haga, w dah bayyen
(Arabic for “I don’t know anything, and it’s obvious”)
I’ll be honest, I kinda love it
Oh, I know nothing at all

Throughout I Promise No One’s Watching we’re genre-jumping, diving into what feels right and suits the moment, rather than what is cool and Nxdia “should” be doing.

“I love jumping between genres and stuff like that. It makes me really happy, so this was a joy in that way.”

How does Nxdia blend them so well?

“It’s all about texture, the songs all have a very like specific texture,” she says. “I just want to explore the range of stuff. And we can always make stuff sound similar, but I think it’s cool to make things happen in my own little way.”

Hell, we’re not even staying in one language: “When you listen to music a lot, especially in your teens, you can definitely tell what’s missing, what you just don’t see represented.  So I was like, ‘Damn,  to be fully myself I need to include this huge part of myself,’” she explains. “I grew up in Cairo. I moved [to England] when I was eight… I spoke and thought in English and Arabic all the time.”

And while this all sounds so heady and deep – and if philosophical pondering is what you’re looking for, then this album delivers in spades – it’s also so much fun.

It’s bouncy, bombastic, and at times unapologetically horny. I Promise No-One’s Watching is a completely true snapshot of Nxdia, and she wants you to feel comfortable being completely yourself.

Find yourself in the lyrics, see yourself in her messiness.

Oh, and there is one more thing: “I want people shaking ass, because I don’t know how to – so I really need someone else to do it. I want emotionally deep ass shaking.”

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“Body on Me” – Nxdia

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 © Ryan Jafarzadeh

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