In this exclusive interview with A&R Factory, Suhaib, the Indian-American artist and producer, opens up about his debut single, All It Was, and the deeply personal themes of time, nostalgia, and lost love that shape his work. Known for his reflective songwriting and commitment to authenticity, Suhaib discusses how his jazz roots subtly influence his evolving sound and how lockdown shaped his creative process. From his shift to releasing music under his birth name to his thoughts on identity and fulfilment, Suhaib offers a candid insight into his artistry. With a profound understanding of music as both a personal outlet and a shared experience, he leaves listeners inspired to challenge their own perspectives through his work.
Welcome to A&R Factory, Suhaib! It’s a pleasure to have you here as you prepare to release your debut single under your own name. The themes of time, nostalgia and lost love in ‘All It Was’ perceptibly come from an intimate place. How do you approach writing about such universal yet deeply personal experiences in a way that resonates with listeners?
That’s a great question! To me, writing anything with other people in mind is the wrong approach; listeners appreciate art that feels personal to the artist, as it opens itself to a broader connection from there. So my goal is always to write something that’s true to me, whether I think other people will resonate with it or not. More often than not, just through the shared experience of being human, people will find something to connect to, even if it’s not what I expected. I always think about songs as building a set of emotional parameters that the listener can then feel whatever they want from.
Relatability is never my goal. I know what the songs mean to me, and I just hope that people appreciate that the art exists. I also hope that it challenges their own thoughts about the world and their own relationships. Listeners will resonate with a song even if it’s not in the way I expected, and that’s the beauty of it.
How much of your jazz roots can listeners expect to hear in this new project, and how have those experiences shaped your sound today?
None hahaha. Actually, maybe a little for now and more as time goes on. Jazz has definitely influenced my taste in music overall, and given me lots of theory knowledge to help with production, but the goal with my artist project is to write songs that are personal first and foremost, then go from there.
There are definitely subconscious influences, like the use of real instruments stemming from my love of Stan Kenton’s “Cuban Fire!”, the melodic style of Stan Getz, and my insistence on extended chords. My future releases will hopefully incorporate more and more elements of jazz (I play trombone in the next single), but for now, my goal is to establish a personal voice and window into my thoughts.
I think modern jazz musicians tend to get very caught up in the harmonic structure and instrumentals of music, often at the expense of the meaning and heart of a song. Don’t get me wrong, I love secondary dominants, but what made me fall in love with jazz was how that harmonic complexity was used to deepen the emotion of a song. The goal for me is to find that balance, but for now, I’m just trying to put my thoughts into words and build from a more minimalistic approach.
Your first music release under Suhaib arrives after a successful run as Osiris. What prompted the decision to release music under your birth name, and how does this project represent a different side of your artistry?
I’m terrible with names. It takes me way longer to think of a name for something than to actually make the thing. I think I’m going to be one of those dads with a nameless baby for way too long. Before I released the music back in 2021, I was waiting for months to come up with a name, then decided on Osiris because I read it somewhere while I was eating alone at a restaurant. It’s an alright name, but I just didn’t think it fit me at all. I realized that deep down, I was hiding behind my art to an extent – I didn’t want to be associated with it so a nickname was my way of putting it out and divorcing it from myself as a person. But in the time since then, I’ve become much more comfortable identifying myself as an artist.
This new project is one that I can say is an extension of ME, and MY thoughts, and what better way to show that than to make it my own name. Also, my name is pretty different as is, so what’s the point of changing it to something inherently less unique? My grandpa did the work when choosing my name, so I have him to thank for increasing my visibility in the Spotify algorithm.
You’ve spoken about using lockdown as a time to develop your skills as a producer and songwriter. How did that period of isolation refine your creative process, and what lessons from that time still influence your work now?
First I want to say that my family and I were privileged enough to not have had to deal with any of the very dire health concerns of that period, which was not the case for a lot of people. All of my college classes were virtual at the time, so I was able to sit down in my room and learn music production from scratch. I was playing regularly in jazz groups on campus, but once I couldn’t make music with other musicians because of lockdown, I figured that producing my own music could scratch that itch.
At the same time, the standstill we were in lent itself very well to self-reflection and reminiscence. I started to think about who I really was when all the institutions I lived by were rendered ineffective, and what version of myself I would be proud of. I realized how much our lives are dependent on places and people outside of ourselves, and how little we spend time understanding ourselves on a deep level. The only way I can make good art is to be brutally honest about my flaws, my insecurities, and my misgivings. Lockdown made me confront those, and I haven’t stopped since then.
As an Indian-American artist growing up in the South, how do your cultural and regional influences manifest in your music, both sonically and thematically?
That’s interesting, I never actually thought of my regional upbringing as having a role in my sound. Having moved around a good amount growing up, I never felt too attached to one place, which I think allowed me to look at things a bit less sentimentally. I guess I don’t romanticize aspects of my life, whether it be the past or present, but more just think about them as extensions of an idea with interesting implications.
Spending most of my life in environments I didn’t necessarily feel comfortable in definitely affects the way I connect to art, and the type of mood I’m going for with my own music. I don’t think it has much to do with my ethnicity as much as just my social habits and interests. In fact, I feel the same amount of discomfort with people of my own culture too, just in a different way. My hope is to talk about these themes on a personal level, not tying them to the specifics of race and ethnicity just yet.
India has some of the best music/musicians in the world, and I think having that background in addition to my jazz background made me push myself more as a musician. No one in my family plays music, but I think just seeing how important it is culturally and how much history there is made me inspired to make music myself. Also, I think growing up watching Bollywood movies that were carried single-handedly by the quality of songs gave me an idea of the power music can have on an audience.
Your work aims to examine coming-of-age and existential themes. How do you balance exploring heavy topics with creating tracks that pique interest and are accessible to your audience?
I make art to get stuff off my chest, and sometimes, that’s not going to be accessible to an audience.
When I listen to a track, the uniqueness of storytelling is what draws me in in addition to the sound. With all the technology and musical capabilities we have nowadays, it’s pretty easy to make cool sounds that scratch an itch and pique commercial interest. Just like how it’s easy to make a movie with cool shots. The more difficult thing is to go beyond that by justifying those decisions through good writing. Audiences want to be challenged, and I truly believe that if something is made with intentionality and care, audiences will at least appreciate it, even if it doesn’t sound like something they’re used to. That’s all I can ask for.
I think form and intention are always going to be at war with one another, but that challenge is what makes doing this so fun. I used to produce with a sound in mind and then write from there, but as time has gone on, I’ve begun to do the opposite because I trust my taste. Making good music is always at the forefront, and that’s a given. Through my collaboration with Arthur, my co-producer, we’re able to strike a balance of staying true to the meaning of a song and letting cool musical ideas supplement that meaning.
What inspired that dynamic structure of your upcoming single, and how does it reflect the story you’re telling through the track?
One of my main goals with my music is to constantly change the experience of the song for the listener. No one who’s listened to only 30 seconds should think that they’ve heard the song. Maybe this comes from jazz, where no two performances are the same, and it’s all about using your own musicality to expand on a song through improvisation. I think we need more variation in production now, especially with the amount of loop-driven songs that come out nowadays.
“All It Was” is about cycles, so I always wanted to start and end it similarly, and have it become the most busy towards the middle, the way our lives are. I knew I wanted it to constantly build using strings and synths, and it was with Arthur that we decided on what exact synth elements we would use.
Looking back on your jazz competition days, you were surrounded by disciplined musicianship at a young age. How has that foundation influenced the way you approach songwriting and production now?
It definitely raised the standard of musicality for me. Being surrounded by musicians who practiced all day every day, I was constantly pushing myself to be better, almost to a fault. It started to consume me (in a good way) because I wanted to justify my presence in those rooms. Now as a solo artist, I want to bring that same thought process to songwriting, production, and hopefully one day, performance. I always feel like I have a good grasp on what to improve, and welcome criticism of any kind.
Unlike more classical settings, there’s an emphasis on individual mastery in jazz, since anyone can be chosen to solo at any time and will be in the spotlight. Personally, I need that kind of pressure because it forces me to take the music seriously and make the best music possible for listeners. I want people to be impressed with the music, but also make them feel something – the way I felt listening to records like Getz/Gilberto for the first time.
The last thing I want is for people to think they’ve wasted their time listening to my music. It’s a privilege to even make art. I’m not doing anything of value in the grand scheme of things. People who are much more needed in the world taking time out of their busy day to listen to my music is not something I should take for granted. I just want to make it worthwhile for them.
With themes of identity and personal fulfilment playing a big role in your music, what do you hope listeners take away from “All It Was” and your upcoming releases?
My only hope is that “All It Was” makes people think about their own lives, or other people in their lives, deeper. In what way is up to them, but if it makes them do that, that’s all I want. Same with the rest of my releases. I know what they mean to me, but how listeners perceive it is also part of what they mean.
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Stream All It Was from February 14th on SoundCloud.
Follow SUHAIB on Instagram to stay up to date with his future releases.
Interview by Amelia Vandergast
