najwa mahiaddin

Perhaps it was the barren winters of Boston, having spent the last three years pursuing her music degree at Berklee College of Music. Switching her playlist from Jill Scott, Erykah Badu and Billie Holiday to the likes of Little Dragon, Evy Jane and James Blake while braving the isolated icy paths far away from home may have had a little something to do with it. A drastic departure from her debut R&B/neo-soul album Innocent Soul back in 2011, Aurora seeks to reaffirm her Malaysian roots by blending traditional elements with a more current soundtrack. Najwa’s bonus track off Aurora, “Seri Mersing”, boldly weaves the ancestral ghazal folk song into a contemporary orchestration- intimating a sacrilegious cultural intercross of the old and new. The EP is set for release in March.

Born in Malaysia, ‘Najwa’ otherwise known as Najwa Mahiaddin first discovered music at the tender age of 3, fascinated by seeing her sister playing the piano and subsequently taking piano and vocal lessons herself too. What began as entertainment at family events quickly evolved into a serious platform for channeling her rebellious teenage years when she discovered the joys of songwriting. Coerced into studying engineering in Melbourne, Najwa consoled her loneliness by songwriting and gigging around town, earning a solid MySpace fanbase in the process. One of the MySpace followers, Malique of Too Phat, a Malaysian hip hop duo, immediately became a fan and approached her for a feature on “Kau Yang Punya” from his solo album. The single became a radio hit and put her on the map of Malaysia’s music scene, and another feature on his successful track, ‘Senyum”, followed. Adamant on pursuing music as a career despite her parents’ protests, Najwa quit her engineering course and enrolled in a Berklee Transfer Program in Malaysia, during which she found her bandmates and developed her arranging and performance skills. Starting off with just herself and the piano at gigs in local venues, including the MoonShine series, Mia Palencia’s Bedroom Musician Series, and Sunburst Music Festival, she began to make headway and co-headlined with Yuna at the prestigious Malam Nada Biru, as well as opened for Ne-yo, Babyface and Michael Buble with a full band. In 2011 she released her debut album, Innocent Soul, for which she was awarded Best New Artiste at the AIM (Malaysian Music Industry Awards) as well as Best Local English Song for her single, "Got to Go". The single received positive reviews and huge airplay on Malaysian radios, and in 2012 she held her sold out solo concert at the Malaysian Philharmonic Hall. Najwa then moved to New York in 2013 after graduating from Berklee College of Music, and has been collaborating and performing with Mostacho Xprmnt. with whom she toured Costa Rica and Nicaragua last August. She is now working on her solo Aurora EP which is set to be released in March 2014.