Nabihah Iqbal

Nabihah Iqbal is a musician, writer and broadcaster from London. A former legal professional, she has studied at both SOAS and The University of Cambridge. She first released music under the alias 'Throwing Shade' in 2013 whilst contributing vocals to Sophie's early releases such as Lemonade. She would switch to her birth name for her debut album 'Weighing of the Heart'.
Early life.
Nabihah Iqbal was born to British Pakistani parents in London near Regent's Park as the eldest of six siblings, her brother Haseeb is a poet.
Career.
She began making music whilst as a human right's lawyer having passed the bar. Early releases under Throwing Shade landed her a show with NTS Radio which she continues to this day where she grew her following with shows exploring music from across the globe. Her early style explored a mixture of experimental and more dancefloor oriented electronic styles including spoken word. Around the same time she began to contribute vocals to Sophie (a close friend of hers) which after heavy manipulation, would go on to play a key role in early Hyperpop.
In 2017 she switched to releasing under her birth name, so too her style switched towards guitar oriented vocal music. Her debut album 'Weighing of the Heart' was released by Ninja Tune to generally favourable reviews, drawing inspiration from William Blake and Matthew Arnold. One particular review in XLR8R was removed for racism for questioning why she didn't include more of her own heritage in her music, a question Nabihah noted would not have been asked to a white musician. More recently she has undertaken a residency at The BBC Asian Network.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she was forced to lockdown in Pakistan whilst visiting her grandparents after her album was stolen by thieves. Whilst there she started a webseries documenting local plants.