Musician Nadia Reid has lifted the lid on her life-changing three-year journey to create her new album ‘Enter Now Brightness’.
In the latest episode of 'Grey Areas', Nadia speaks candidly about the arduous process, which featured two pregnancies, a permanent move to the UK, and her first experiences of motherhood.
She told Petra that, unlike previous recording experiences, she didn’t have fully formed songs ready to go when she hit the studio and had to juggle recording with raising her kids and getting accustomed to her new life in Manchester.
“The first song of the record [Emmanuelle] was one of the last songs I wrote… there's a line that says 'there is far too much at stake now’."
When I had the babies, I was like, there's so much at stake in these two little precious lives. I want to do the best I can for them, be the best mum.
Nadia says while being able to throw herself fully into music would be an advantage, she is clear never to feel a sense of ‘what if’ about her career now that she’s a mum.
“Babies don't ask to be born, that's the thing I'm really clear about. With my two girls, I chose to have them. They were very, very wanted, and they are the lights of my life, and they are my number-one priority. I'm never going to do anything that will jeopardise their wellbeing.
“I would never, ever utter the words to them that ‘I could have been on [The] Graham Norton [Show]’ or something – that's so dangerous to say to your child.
In the song ‘Changed, Unchained’, there's a lyric that ‘pain is a faint memory I'm making’, and I say it's no one's fault – I don't have anger; it's just gone because it's not helpful.”
Nadia is grateful that she’s grown up in a generation where women have been empowered to pursue both motherhood and a career – something her mother and grandmother didn’t have the luxury of.
“Carl Jung says the greatest burden a child can bear is the unlived life of its parents, and I suppose I've grappled with that a lot about the music thing, [because] I want to give it a really good shot,” she told Grey Areas.
“And they can come alongside, and I can do both. And maybe my mum's generation or the generation before didn't get to do that; they had to do one or the other.”
Nadia told Grey Areas that for a long time, she couldn’t say that she carries the burden of a life unlived, but has learnt she doesn’t have to mute that.
“I don't hold any negative feelings; it was what it was, but I did feel that that unlived life. [My Mum] was essentially a solo parent and an immigrant growing up with not much money. I don't like to use the word poverty, but I think you could, and that takes a long time to leave a person.”
Reflecting on her life, Nadia says she sees success as being “the master of my own time”.
“To have a life where I've lived to my values, where I'm authentic and I can show up for people, have really real conversations, and have open hands,” she told Petra.
“It just comes down to time. I can do these really intensive four-week tours, and then I can go and be with the babies and do the really mundane running of a household. I love that I can have both.
“And so I suspect life is going to be being on stage and having all this attention, and then going home and wiping pooey bottoms.”
Listen to the full interview with Nadia Reid on 'Grey Areas with Petra Bagust'.
