From her favourite pub to her bedroom, the 23-year-old takes us on a tour of her favourite London spots – and tells us why she’s determined to be the new face of British rock
London-born artist Aziya and I meet for the first time in mid-September outside Tottenham Court Road station. In a leather Hard Rock cafe jacket, Wu-Tang Clan shirt, chunky leather black boots, and thick black sunglasses, she looks like a rock star from the moment she steps off the escalator.
After we greet each other, we set off on our mission to find a new guitar. Since the 1970s, Denmark Street, just a few minutes away from the station, has been home to some of London’s most iconic guitar shops. 13 years ago, the rising alt-rock star bought her first guitar from this very street, having been brought up a short tube ride away in east London. While the store itself is now barricaded up, we spent some time checking out the other historic shops which remain are still surviving nearby.
Within an hour of meeting, she gives me a crash course on all things to do with the electric guitar. Key takeaways: Fender is her Guitar brand of choice, electric guitars can sound different depending on where in the world they are and the only real way of knowing if a guitar is right for you is by picking it up and playing it yourself. After touring through The Lower Third, Regents Sound Studio and Hank’s Guitar Shop, she leaves with no guitar but seems to be energised by simply being surrounded by her favourite instrument.
As we hop on the Elizabeth Line to Whitechapel, she holds back on telling me too much about her upcoming project just yet. Instead, we bond over our age, the impossible chore of finding an apartment in London, and My Year of Rest and Rexalation by Otessa Moshfegh. After about 25 minutes we arrive at the George Tavern in Stepney Green to sit down and chat in the empty venue before it officially opens for the day. Last month, the 23-year-old had her final show of her debut tour in the venue, famously frequented by the likes of Nike Cave, Anna Calvi and Kate Moss. “It was really lovely to start off in Scotland, come down see all the different types of faces and all the different types of people that listen to my music and then and in my hometown,” she says. “Then get an Uber for 10 minutes and be home.”
Photography Habi Diallo
Born and raised in Hackney as the eldest of three, Aziya grew up in a household bustling with a vast array of musical influences. “My mom was playing a lot of Stevie Nicks and Patti Smith, but then also A Tribe Called Quest, and my dad was playing Outkast and J Dilla,” she explains, discussing the music she grew up listening to. ”But then in my car journeys to school, my parents would put on a System of a Down CD. So it was very varied, and there were no limits to what I was listening to. I think I really had an affiliation as a kid to guitar music, whether it was like Jimi Hendrix or No Doubt.” When she was ten years old, her mother spotted her affinity for guitar music and brought her first guitar to see how it would progress.
Over a Diet Coke, she reminisces fondly on the first song she wrote at the age of 11. “I thought I ate,” she says, with a laugh. “I tried to make this metaphor about a shower representing love and it was so poetic. It was so deep and I was like ‘Yeah it’s coming out’. It obviously never did.” Eventually, her growing passion for playing guitar and alternative rock music ignited her growing passion for playing guitar and her love of alternative rock music propelled her to pursue a fully-fledged career as a musician.
During the pandemic, she began posting TikTok videos of her covers and eventually began gaining attraction from artists like Grimes and Florence and The Machine – the latter of whom she later toured with as an opening act. As it stands, she has almost 300,000 followers on the app and 4.9 million likes.
It’s no secret women in alternative rock music have been historically erased and shunned from mainstream history. While she grew up with a rich knowledge of alternative rock music, female role models were not as visible or known to Aziya. Instead, she recounts spending a lot of time countless hours doing research to find the women rock stars who, despite being overlooked, have undeniably paved the way for herself and her contemporaries.
The first female guitarist she found was Viv Albertine from the Slits. “What resonated with me was that she wasn’t classically trained,” she explains. “She didn’t know how to play guitar. She just had friends that were in The Clash and she was hanging out with the Sex Pistols so she naturally just picked up an electric guitar to try it and just like instinctively started playing. I think to me, that’s way more important than someone who’s learned for years on end.” One discovery led to another and eventually, she found Sister Rosetta Tharpe. “I think she’s the Rock and Roll Queen,” Aziya says. “She was an amazing guitarist back in the 60s in gospel music and then from her, I found June Millington from the band Fanny. So there are women out there, but you really have to search for them. I just don’t want that to be the case in this generation.”
Photography Habi Diallo
Two years ago, she released her first EP We Speak of Tides, a five-song record exploring human connection, coming-of-age and the tumultuous nature of relationships. Despite it only being a couple of years since the record came out, the growth that so often occurs during the late teens and early twenties is apparent in her latest project. “I think this EP was different because the first EP for me was working out where within guitar music I sat as an artist,” she says. “So on We Speak of Tides you hear psych-rock influences you hear like heavy guitar, grungy influences. And I think with this EP, it was more like, OK, we’ve gone on a journey. Now, this is where you are, this is your sound.”
Entitled Lonely Castles, Aziya’s latest EP is a four-song record unpacking notions of solitude and her longing for companionship. Entirely self-produced, it shows off a new sense of assurance in her sound, which she describes as “music for Debbie Harry to sing, Prince to co-produce and John Bonham to drum on”.
Photography Habi Diallo
While she had the EP’s title in her notes for a while, Aziya says the record’s name was confirmed by a recent visit to The National Portrait Gallery, where she came across a painting of Bajan writer George Lamming by artist Bret John Simpson. Accompanying the image was a Lamming quote which read, “They won’t know you, the you that’s hidden somewhere in the castle of your skin”. This idea was something she wanted to explore with the record. As we unpack each song, she talks me through how each song visually represents a different room in a castle. For example, “Atomic”, a song about modern-day love, represents if “CBGB, the club in New York, was in Manchester filled with Northerners”. The lead single “Chain”, which she filmed a video for in the George Tavern, is an ode to her listeners and the community she has created.
On “Wundagirl”, a song whose title is a nod to Canadian producer Wondagirl, she sings “Then you turn 21, owe the world everything / I don’t need anyone, anyone or anything”. When asked about what these lyrics mean, she explains, “I wrote that because I think it was me really finding my feet, in music, and a world that I love. But it was also realising that there are sometimes expectations that are almost unbeatable as a human. Sometimes it’s so important to take care of yourself and realise that what you do as a person is good enough.”
Photography Habi Diallo
Before we leave the George Tavern, she proudly shows me the stickers from her gig in the bathroom, a permanent marker of her name immortalised against the venue’s greatest performers. But we end our day in her bedroom, in the house she lives in with several other girls also in their twenties. Posters, denim jackets on a clothing rack, records, Patti Smith books and skincare adorn the walls of her room. When we talk about how she imagines her life to look in the next five years, she says, “I’ll be on my second album, which I produced and did the arrangement for myself. I would’ve sold out Madison Square Garden and I would’ve performed on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury.” While her room is decked out with all the things you’d expect from an up-and-coming musician, her quiet confidence and raw ambition go beyond any regular 23-year-old.
Lonely Castles is out now
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https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/61008/1/aziya-lonely-castles-ep-east-london-george-tavern-denmark-street
