Sahirah from The Block - In conversation with Sahirah Oshidar about her latest release, 'Juicy'!
In conversation with Sahirah Oshidar talking about her latest release, Juicy!
Sahirah is an artist born and raised in Mumbai, India and currently based in London. She has been surrounded with music all through growing up. My conversation with her followed a simple, yet smooth flow where she talked me through the process of making Juicy, how she got into making her own music and just how cool it is to make music she loves.
Having been brought up in a family with a background in music, Sahirah mentioned how she felt almost rebellious in not choosing to go the same way as everyone around her. However, the heart wants what it wants - and so, she began writing for herself. “I knew I loved music and that it was my passion, but I was just so scared to, you know, do something that is supposed to be not just your typical 9-5 job.”, she says.
The moment she started writing for herself and making music is when it all changed. She mentioned, “the top five moments of my life, or at least four of them have been in this last year!” She described the feeling of working on and putting out her own music as something so liberating. One thing she always held as a constant goal was to get into her car and put on her own music, and when that finally happened, it was one of the happiest moments of her life.
It was back in January 2021 when she wrote her first single but never released it because she felt incredibly terrified about putting it out there. However, when she moved back to London for her job, she wrote ‘Necklace’, which was her first release. The process of releasing this song was really quick, because when she dropped the teaser, people reacted really well and within three weeks, the song was out! The short period of time ensured that she wouldn’t overthink it too much and instead, just put it out.
Now juicy - that’s a really fun story. Back in 2021, Sahirah spent around 5 weeks in Goa during the lockdown and the first two weeks, as she describes it, were a rager. For the rest of her time in Goa, she moved to her best friend, Amalia’s house - which was a complete opposite of the rager, very relaxed and a complete detox. Now, this is where the story gets juicy (see what I did there?). One morning, Amalia made some french toast which Sahirah describes (and if you’ve seen the video, you know that she is NOT wrong about this) as the best thing ever. Amalia actually took a video of her eating the french toast and sent it to a bunch of people and Sahirah’s best friend (who she had a crush on!) was one of them. His response to this said “Yummy…and the french toast too”.
Note: Right this moment, I couldn't help but make my stupid “awwww” face at this story. This is. So. Cute.
That day, Sahirah began recording this song and it became a little about breakfast, and just this cheeky thing about the french toast and her crush. “This song is literally inspired by the best french toast I’ve ever had”.
“I remember making a really amateur version of it back then because I was in Goa and didn’t have my mic, and was doing it on my laptop. So I showed it to Amalia and her sister and we danced to it in her room. I just, I heard it and knew that okay, this is good and I like this a lot.” she said. When she got back, she recorded the song in the proper studio and started looking for something to fill the empty space in the middle of the song. She got in touch with an artist friend from the UK, NEMY, to work with on the song. She sent him the track and asked him to go for it if he liked the song, and he sent his verse back. Instantly, she loved it, because he completely matched her vision for the song.
Now came the time to put together a music video. Sahirah’s idea for the music video was “to make viewers feel uncomfortable watching it but at the same time can’t help but continue watching further” and so, while incorporating the food elements (the song is about french toast, so duh-doy) she wanted to have a sexy, clean space get messy - fitting in perfectly with the song. She brought in Zyraa Zend, a friend in the culinary arts as an art-food director who helped conceptualize and make all the food sequences happen in the video.
The idea behind Sahirah’s vision for the video comes from her memories of making banana pancakes in her apartment in London early in the pandemic. I think that is just what drew me into the song in the first place, that element of having a good time alone, just doing your thing and making something you enjoy. As for the bedroom shots (which by the way - how dreamy does that look?) Sahirah envisioned it to be as fantasy driven as possible. “What if you could make food look as good as it can and have it even taste that good?” she asks.
When looking for an animator to help with the video, Sahirah DMed all the animation artists she could find on Instagram and finally found Deepti Sharma’s work and instantly knew her work goes perfectly with the style Sahirah was looking to incorporate in her video.
Sahirah, as an artist, describes herself as a lover of dichotomy. She also points out that her music is exactly like her personality. She’s more of a song person, rather than a genre person. Juicy is one of her most pop-sounding tracks, and even though all her music sound distinctive in their own ways, she loves it like that. Here’s to more real, fun and absolutely off-the-charts-cool music!
Don’t believe me? Stream Juicy here and see for yourself.