In case you haven’t noticed, something is happening in Saudi Arabia. A seismic shifting of the sands, a Kingdom moving with the times, creating a bubbling, building tempo that is palpable. From the steady but radical change that has taken place over the past 20 years in the Kingdom, a new creative scene has emerged producing internationally recognised talents, such as Jeddah-based producer and DJ Cosmicat. Known to her friends as Nouf – and officially as Ms Sufyani – Cosmicat is a stage name dreamt up with a friend one day when a time-crunch demanded it. The name plays to the artist’s great love of space and felines, the former of which she describes as “vast, mysterious and beautiful. It’s everything. A bit like music.”
When we speak, the musician is preparing to release a new EP with Vinyl Mode and has just returned from a holiday in Zanzibar, telling us she’s readying herself to “plug back into the matrix” of daily life. And what a life it is. The trained dentist, who segued from braces to beats, has played some awe-inspiring venues so far during her eight-year career – from London’s iconic Fabric to the legendary EDM festival Tomorrowland, and it seems that’s just the beginning.
Jacket: H&M X Rokh
Dress: Diesel
Earrings, bangle and shoes: & Other Stories
Describing her sound as “melodic house” but adding that it’s “constantly changing”, Nouf has a distinct Y2K feel to both her slick tracks and her current look. “I think for me, the early 2000s was the golden age of music. It was super inspiring to see how good music and clean production came together,” she says. “Nice choreographed dances and fantastic fashion. I remember some of Missy Elliott’s music videos – all the crazy things she used to put on were mind-blowing. Hip hop during that era had a big influence on my style.” Aaliyah gets a mention too, along with Beyoncé and Alicia Keys. In fact, Nouf met Alicia Keys recently when appearing together on a Women to Women panel for International Women’s Day. Her reaction? “I froze! But I also got her to sign my CD!” Nouf laughs. Well, who wouldn’t?
Nouf recalls listening to music “every day since she was a child.” To her, it was an escape and an outlet, her inspiration, and her place to feel. And it’s these things that she now wants from her career over accolades and “stuff” she says, though admitting she does like the other things too! “I want whoever listens to my music to get the same feelings I got when I was younger, and I had absolutely nothing but my cassettes,” she recalls. “I never felt understood. I didn’t have the tools to express myself through speaking. Obviously, I could speak, but I didn’t know how to articulate my emotions. And I felt like music did that for me. So, I want my music to address these emotions for people who can’t express them. To make them feel loved or give them that adrenaline rush whenever needed.”
Like most adolescents, Nouf spent a significant amount of time in her bedroom. But unlike today, there was no streaming nor instant access to the worldwide wonder of music. “Growing up, we had one cassette player in the house. I used to steal it and play my music for hours and hours,” she smiles. “And it’s funny, because when I used to do that, I wanted to sing along with the tracks, but at that age my English wasn’t any good. So later on, when we had internet access, I would find the lyrics online.” And her favourite album back then? “Craig David, when he first came out with Slicker Than Your Average. I think that was one of my very first cassettes. Now I have it on vinyl and I still love it. I think I memorised every single word,” she remembers happily. “But as I gotmost of my cassettes from Saudi, they were copied, so you don’t always get the lyrics and the credits in the sleeve. So, I had to go and look it up, and every time I ran into a word or a term that I didn’t understand I had to find it, and I indirectly learned a new language.” Bo-Selecta, thanks Craig.
Dress: Abadia
Earrings and bangle: Mango
Flash forward to 2020 and her debut Dilemma was released with Yann Dulché, and to say it all kicked off would be an understatement. Often, when an artist first makes public something laboured over in private, it can leave them feeling raw and open, but not Nouf. “Honestly, it felt like a dream because I always wanted to do music. I always wanted to make music and not just DJ or put a playlist together. I felt so powerful hearing that exact track that I made being played loud on a stage at a music event or through someone’s speakers. It feels surreal, especially because I didn’t get to pursue music academically. There was nowhere I could learn.”
But plenty of academic learning she did. Nouf was studious in school and chose to train in dentistry as it felt like the “most artistic” of the sciences, she says, where you could work with your hands and be precise. It also had natural knock-on effects on how the artist works now. “I am one of the most organised people you will ever meet. I say that confidently. Everything has to be in order and checked. Especially when I’m touring or travelling. I have a pair of everything. I have notes written down. A full itinerary documented weeks before the trip.” And what happens if there’s a change in plans? “I freak out!” she laughs.
This meticulous attention to detail and work ethic has been serving Nouf well so far, but the misconceptions about what she does as a DJ still arise. “People think I’m partying all the time and having fun. That’s not true. The reality is that I’m working, and it’s just like every job out there, except I travel more. I love what I do, but it’s much more tiring than, you know, going to places and partying. It’s not like that at all. There’s a lot of preparation and work going on behind the scenes. A lot of emails,” she explains. “In reality, I’m very introverted and quiet. I barely even speak. I like to live inside my head, to daydream. I think at this point I’m traumatised by loud noise! I would only go ‘out out’ to a concert. And I would choose a concert or a festival over a club 100 per cent of the time. And I would only go if there’s someone special that I want to listen to.” Not quite the 24/7 hedonism we’re used to from superstar DJs… But Nouf is skilled at taking stereotypes and turning them on their heads.
To get to this point, from a place with such a nuanced history as Jeddah, is remarkable. “I never thought about [music] being a career given the circumstances I grew up in back in the 1990s in Saudi Arabia. The reality looked very different from now. It wasn’t an option back then,” Nouf explains. “I think [the change] was pretty gradual, but also almost fast paced. What makes it as powerful as it is, though, is the fact that everyone was waiting for this change. Everyone was praying for it. Saudis are some of the most well-travelled people in the world. Everywhere you go, you’ll find a Saudi or two hanging out somewhere, and that’s been happening for years, ever since the Sixties and Seventies. We have seen the world, but for the world to come to Saudi Arabia… It just feels so powerful.”
Dress: Elisabetta Franchi
Earrings: Swarovski
Does she feel any dilution of her culture in recent years as the Kingdom opens up to the world? In short, no. “My cultural identity is everything. It’s the clothes I wear. It’s the food I eat. It’s the music that I listen to. It’s everywhere that I go to. It’s my friends, my country, my home, everything,” she explains. “And there’s this misconception that being cultural and being modern are two different things that don’t go together, and that is absolutely wrong. If you go and visit any Arab country, you will see those two things living together in harmony. You don’t have to let go of your culture and who you are just to be considered ‘modern’ by some standards.”
Similarly to the Balearic beats of the late 1980s and early 1990s in Ibiza, is a new sound emerging from Saudi? “It’s been interesting. Over the past, let’s say seven years, each major city in Saudi has formed its electronic sound. Riyadh is more techno and aggressive, progressive house – big sounds happening in the big city. And it makes sense because Riyadh is kind of like New York and the level of activity that they’ve got going on,” says Nouf. “Then you go to Jeddah, which is on the west coast of Saudi – here it’s more chill, more groovy, more disco. It goes with the beach vibes. It’s not a conscious thing, it’s just naturally happened.”
With a global eye steadily focusing on the new Saudi Arabia, it is interesting to hear from a creative in the field how these changes are taking place, and what that looks like. “The Music Commission, under the Ministry of Culture, has been putting a lot of effort into initiating studios and music hubs in the major cities, providing huge scholarships for Saudi individuals to go study music abroad, creating opportunities and programs to support creatives and show them how to make and present art as a professional,” Nouf says of the burgeoning scene. “Every problem we had in the past is being actively solved. From academic facilities for music to studios that you can rent or even stores to sell musical equipment.”
And as a woman, a Saudi woman at that – yep, plenty more preconceptions there, too you can’t not ask how Nouf sees that aspect of the landscape evolving. “It is changing. And I’m seeing more ladies every single day going out publicly to the world with their music, with their talents. And it makes me so happy, because back then we didn’t see that. I would love to see more women making music everywhere in the world, because the reality of the industry globally is that men are dominating. And I would love for us to exist in a more equal space.”
With all the jet-set travel Nouf has undertaken for her career thus far, we wonder if it’s given her a yearning to live somewhere new, but it seems unlikely. “What’s magic about Saudi is that it’s very diverse geographically. You can find everything here… Snow, desert, mountains, beaches, islands and everything in between!” she states of her beloved homeland. And for any doubters still on the fence, she says: “Come to Saudi, Habibi!” Cue: much laughing.
As our chat comes to a close, it feels apt to ask Nouf what advice she would give to her 15 year-old self. “I would tell her to keep on being persistent and don’t get dragged down,” she says. “The best advice I have ever been given was actually at dental school. We were always encouraged to go and do our own research and find our own answers, because no one will hand them to you. And this is what I did with music. No one came up and just gave me instructions on how to make music, I had to learn and find every possible way to reach my goal on my own.” And just like that, she has.
Featured image:
Jacket: Noon by Noor
Dress: Elisabetta Franchi
Earrings: Swarovski
Words by Cressida Meale
Photography by Amina Zaher
Styling by Seher Khan
Hair & Make Up: Sarah Sequeria
Senior Producer: Steff Hawker
Production Coordinator: Chloe Christodoulou
Photography Assistant: Ahmed Taha
Special thanks to the Saudi Music Hub Jeddah.
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