Dubai: “I’m nervous, but also very excited,” says Nadine Lingawi, singer, songwriter and producer. “I know that you have to give the impression of being completely in control of the situation and fully prepared. But this is my very first album, my first real project. It’s not a very commercial work, and one always wonders if it will find its audience. Yet, deep within me, a strange serenity inhabits me. I have not the slightest doubt: it will work, because I do what I love with passion”.
Lingawi, better known by her stage name Fulana, talks about her very first album, the collaborative project “ground:from”. Designed in partnership with electronic Music duo Input/Output, this opus marks the first chapter of a two-part concept album. It is described with a dark and intriguing look, like a “letter to death”.
For this artist born in Vancouver and raised in Jeddah, this moment marks a real turning point. Over the past three years, she has devoted her energy to releasing songs such as “Minarets”, “Lore”, “Trouble” and “Reprobate” under the independent label “Wall of Sound”. Mainly English-speaking in her compositions, she is part of a deeply introspective universe imbued with existentialism. Despite this intimate dimension, she has shone on some of the biggest musical stages in Saudi Arabia, notably at the first Riyadh International Jazz Festival earlier this year and during the unmissable “MDLBeast XP” event.
“I never really had the idea – or even the desire – to perform on stage; for me, it was more of a hobby growing up,” says Lingawi, whose family is from the historic Al-Balad district of Jeddah. “Music was simply a way of expressing feelings or emotions. I was never very good with words or confrontations. With people my age, I often felt things more intensely, but had difficulty expressing them. Music therefore became my refuge, my key to understanding the world.”
Originally, “ground:from” was just a collection of songs written by Lingawi. She had asked Abdulmajeed Alwazna, one of the members of the duo Input/Output, to produce a single track for a partially written album. Alwazna then contacted Husam Al-Sayed, the second member of Input/Output and a friend of Lingawi. Together, the three artists revisited the entire album, while Lingawi shared his vision and aspirations for this musical project.
“It’s a magical moment, because it’s already amazing that people want to help you create something,” says Lingawi. “But it’s even more extraordinary when these same people seek to take ownership of the project, because they then put their whole heart into it.”
The three musicians collaborated intensively for two and a half months, with Lingawi regularly traveling between Jeddah and Riyadh for the recording sessions. They met two to three times a week, sometimes just to discuss the artistic direction of the album. Together, they painstakingly analyzed every sound she brought to the studio, carefully deciding what was worth keeping and what should be discarded.
“We deconstructed each song to examine its essence, making decisions together like: ‘This doesn’t work here, we need to change it’ or ‘This sound doesn’t fit, let’s create a new one,’” recalls Lingawi . “We wrote, produced and experimented hand in hand, and it is thanks to this creative synergy that this project saw the light of day.”
The result is an atmospheric and contemplative work, a profound exploration of mortality. Conceived as an intimate dialogue with death, the first chapter invites listeners on a journey above ground, incorporating sonic elements such as chirping crickets, chirping birds, rumbling thunder, and other natural sounds . These sonic textures combine to evoke a sense of “beginning decay,” while Lingawi, true to his introspective and lyrical style, speaks directly to death itself.
“I have always been fascinated by the dichotomy of life,” she confides. “I like to create sounds that sound happy while my lyrics are dark, or the other way around. I think this duality creates a balance, one that we constantly seek to achieve in life. Since I was very young, the idea of endings and beginnings has intrigued me deeply. This has always shaped my perception of the world and nourishes the thoughts that often occupy my mind.”
“But in this album, death is not limited to the idea of decay or our souls leaving us. It also embodies the death of causes, of humanity, of feelings, or even of chapters of our lives. It’s more of an exploration of the ending and the romance surrounding it. In a way, it’s a reflection of myself, because I tend to idealize endings more than savor the good sides of things. The first chapter expresses this desire for tension, this quest for the one thing that I can never achieve. In the second chapter, however, we take a step back and become aware of the consequences of this quest: that of not having known how to appreciate the moments for what they were, while they were still alive.
Lingawi’s vocals, often hypnotic in their emotional clarity, intertwine harmoniously with the deep synths and ambient guitars of Input/Output. The duo, known for their mastery of rhythmic structures and cinematic soundscapes, helps create a musical universe intensely anchored in the deeper themes of the album. The first chapter mainly explores the melancholy of love, the transience of life and the cycles of loss and rebirth. In the second chapter, due early next year, the trio dives underground, tackling a darker, rawer, and intensely honest conversation with death.
Lingawi’s musical journey began as a child, lulled by songs played on the radio during car trips with her mother. At 17, she began sharing her own music online, the result of her early experiments with GarageBand and a deep love for slam poetry, which has accompanied her since the age of 14.
To preserve her anonymity, she chose the name Fulana, which means “anonymous woman” in Arabic.
“Fulana was my slightly sassy way of saying: ‘I’m going to put my music online, and no one will know it’s me,’” she explains. “I wanted to keep the name because it allowed me, not to dissociate myself, but to encourage people to focus on what I say and the stories I tell, rather than on me. It remains an essential part of who I am as a musician. I don’t really want the attention to be on me as an individual. “It doesn’t interest me that much,” she confides. “What matters is the music. If we could just focus on her, and not me, that would be perfect.”
This text is the translation of an article published on Arabnews.com
