Introducing Naveed 

Naveed Akhtar is a production-based electronic musician from Manchester. His music draws from a variety of influences across jazz, soul, hip hop and Latin music, and incorporates hardware such as synths, samplers and drum machines. Under his label Northern Life Records, he produces music on a solo, purely electronic basis under the name Freak Seven, and his collaborative projects under the name Sasso, where other musicians and instrumental outfits may be involved. 

"I think I probably [would have] had different ears If I grew up in a different place- I think Manchester’s been quite unique, and had a big influence on sort of, the music I listen to, and what I make as well." 

Naveed's Musical Life History 

Naveed was originally born in Croydon, but moved to Cheetham Hill, in North Manchester, when he was around two years old. An only child in a British-Pakistani family, he considers his parents' musical interests to have had an impact on his own music-making: 

"Some of the first music I heard- I don't I don't have any older brothers and sisters, so the music that I heard was from my parents, it would have been sort of, Indian, you know, Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle and stuff like that." 

Naveed played the trumpet in primary school, and sang in the school choir, but his real enthusiasm and passion for music emerged when he discovered electronic forms of music as he grew up. 

"So I've been, you know, into electronic music as a listener at various moments growing up- there was a lot of electro, and hiphop and stuff. And then the whole sort of electronic music scene- sort of Detroit techno, and Chicago house and stuff. And a friend of mine who’s a couple years older, he was into drum machines, and synths and samplers, and so I used to hang around with him- that really got me you know, wanting to write music, you know, with synths and stuff. One of the things I remember as a kid was when MIDI was introduced, and I remember seeing it on Tomorrow's World- you know, there was this program called Tomorrow’s World which was about future, sort of, technology. I saw they had this MIDI set up that was all being controlled by a tiny little ZX spectrum computer that I had at the time, and that just blew me away, you know- playing drum pads, with sticks, they were a MIDI drum kit, but they were getting a piano sound out, and I was like, “Wow, that's amazing”, you know? [laughs] And so, yeah, I've been sort of, writing music and releasing stuff when vinyl was, you know, was king basically." 

Over the years, Naveed has developed his own musical style and setup, having both set up a home studio and established his musical acclaim online. He continues collaborating with musicians across a variety of musical styles. Before and during the pandemic, he has continued exploring new instruments and styles. 

"[I use] synths really, you know, keyboards and synths- I wouldn’t say I was a performer, I wouldn’t be able to go out and do a 32 bar jazz solo or anything like that... I've been releasing stuff on Bandcamp and doing some projects with other people as well, which is quite interesting. I'm doing a project with a guy called Ben Walker- he's, he's a jazz musician, but he's really into uilleann pipes, you know, Celtic pipes and stuff." 

"I've just ordered a Roger Linn instrument, which is.... It’s a MIDI controller, so it triggers synthesisers, but it's, it set out like a stringed instrument, you know. So it's a slightly different way of playing it, for me. Because you can move your chords about in the same shape, and you know, you can get the same shape, but you can't do that on a keyboard." 

Since the '90s, the landscape of Naveed's music-making has changed dramatically-particularly, he believes, in relation to the level of access of music production in terms of the amount of music available to listeners: 

"A lot more people are [making music] for a start, and that's because of technology and the means, you know- when I started, you know, if you wanted a drum sound, you bought a drum machine, and then if you wanted some synths you bought some synths and then you put it together, whereas now you can, you know, you can do on your phone, if you want to, you can do it on many laptops. There's a lot more music, there's a lot more- there are a lot more people doing it, and there's a lot more interesting music around." 

Producing as a British-South Asian Artist 

Although electronic-based music production is often not as outward facing and performance-focused as other musical mediums, Naveed has still encountered difficulties as a British-Pakistani musical artist, particularly in relation to the predispositions the music industry places on British-South Asian musical artists and its attempts to pigeonhole particular genres: 

"There's a lot of British- South Asian producers around and stuff, and I think culture and heritage just come into it, where they're sort of, obviously, where you're kind of using harmonies and keys from a sort of South Asian [musical tradition]- or not so obviously, it definitely has an influence on my music. What I found is over the years is that being South Asian and doing that kind of music is, is hard… It’s sometimes difficult to get across to people, because, you know, people see, you know, people see you and you sitting away and they kind of expect, you know, it's hard to put you in any genre, you know, what they expect is bhangra... I’ll give you an example, I went to, years ago in like, 1980s something or other, a friend of mine won some tickets to go see a Guy Called Gerald playing at Boardwalk. And we went down, and then afterwards there was a write up in the NME... Part of the write up, the journalist was kind of describing the type of people that were there, sort of, like, you know, “from rockabillies, to this, to bhangra casuals”, and we were the bhangra casuals. And it was like, do you know what I mean? People feel they have to pigeonhole you... I think that's becoming less and less relevant now- no, not relevant, but it's less of a hurdle now. Because, you know, there's all sorts of people around the world making different types of music." 

Manchester's Musical Communities 

Manchester and the diversity of the cultures in the city have had an impact on Naveed's own musical style, both in relation to the music he was exposed to growing up, and in the musical support system he discovered through producing music in the city: 

"[As I was] getting older, listening to the radio and, you know, getting older into the teens, people sort of swapped mixtapes and stuff... I think I've got quite a broad range of music, and that's, I really think that's down to, you know, growing up in Manchester and growing up in the area that I was as well. Because it was so mixed- and, you know, you'd go out and you'd hear people playing reggae and you know, electro and you know, and Irish music and, and all sorts of stuff." 

"But in terms of... the musical family in Manchester, that's pretty much the same- it's a small place, it’s easy to get to gigs, or rehearsal spaces or stuff like that. People are quite willing to help you out, sort of thing... I've not lived in London, but I've been down there, for kind of sessions. And I think what it means to make music in Manchester is community, really, because it's a really supportive community. I've been to, over the years I've been in London doing sessions and recordings, and they have a music scene down there, obviously, and it's really competitive. You know, it’s really like… No one’s gonna like, they don't like helping each other out at all [laughs]. Yeah, I suppose so, yeah, same answer- community." 

The purpose behind Naveed's music-making 

Naveed makes music both for himself and others: for him, composing and producing brings its own forms of catharsis, and for his audience, he hopes his music resonates with others: 

"I suppose it’s a way of exorcising my demons, really- it's more therapeutic than anything, you know. And I love doing it, and I kind of getting lost in it- you know, you get that moment where you've got that, you hit that chord progression and the harmony and stuff, and it feels like the first time every time I do it, you know, that sense of kind of elation. You know, it doesn't, it hasn't diminished over the years, so that's why I kind of do it. Yeah, I suppose it's kind of like a way to take any sort of, you know, positive and negative energy, and just you know, channel it." 

"I’m going to carry on [making music] until, you know, I can’t do it anymore. As I said it’s something that I really enjoy doing. Yeah, I just, you know, there's a lot of music, what I do, and get it out there, you know- get people to hear it and stuff. You know, to me really, it I put something out and just one person hears it and likes it, that’s it kind of, you know, that that's my job done, really. So yeah, I’m just going to carry on as I’m going." 

Largo (see video) "The video was done [by] a friend of mine... He’s a video-maker, a film-maker. So he did that to the music, you know. And it was a friend of mine, Yvonne- it was her 60th birthday, and she was having a party in Manchester. So some of that video is us driving in in his car, me holding a camera and taking you know, a video of the night time- it was dark, it was really wet as well, typical Manchester evening. And then all the sort of bits in that that are in, in the club, the sort of dance floor-y bits, you know, they were all, that was all shot in there. And it was just edited up in that sort of choppy way. Yvonne is a sound engineer, and she used to be the sound engineer for a lot of people- Simply Red, and Swing Out Sister. There was quite a few sort of, Manchester music people in there, you know- I think Bruce Mitchell sat there, he’s from Durutti Column." You know, there are musicians in there- all from Manchester as well, you know, I’ve played with some really, really big sort of people that you wouldn’t expect."