“I’ve always been the underdog, and I’ve always respected the underdog, and I just didn’t think I’d be the underdog for this long,” Nemah Hasan, the artist known as Nemahsis, tells Rolling Stone in the latest episode of The Breakdown. In an emotional pause, she adds: “I’m just gonna take a moment. I’m so sensitive. I’m such a Pisces.”
In early October of last year, Nemahsis had flown to Los Angeles and signed a record deal. A few days later on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel, marking the beginning of a brutal war between Israel and Hamas. Shortly after, Nemahsis was dropped from her label.
“A year ago, I was in a situation where I had an album that every label was like fighting over,” she says, looking back at that time. “If I wanted a session with anyone I could most likely get it. It was like the easiest thing, because my talent, my music, spoke for more than what I look like and stuff. I didn’t want to do it alone, but I realized that it’s what was meant to happen. I think with this album, it no longer was mine, but it was more of a stance, I was making by releasing it and persevering.”
In early October of last year, Nemahsis had flown to Los Angeles and signed a record deal. A few days later on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel, marking the beginning of a brutal war between Israel and Hamas. Shortly after, Nemahsis was dropped from her label.
“A year ago, I was in a situation where I had an album that every label was like fighting over,” she says, looking back at that time. “If I wanted a session with anyone I could most likely get it. It was like the easiest thing, because my talent, my music, spoke for more than what I look like and stuff. I didn’t want to do it alone, but I realized that it’s what was meant to happen. I think with this album, it no longer was mine, but it was more of a stance, I was making by releasing it and persevering.”
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MusicTranscript
00:00all i can preface is that i did hate the song i didn't show it to my manager i think the only
00:04song to date i never sent him and i pretended like we got nothing out of that session i actually lied
00:09to him i know bad mama we were all out for breakfast danny pablo me and chas my manager
00:16and they were like yeah but we really think colored concrete should be rediscovered and
00:21my manager like put his fork down and he looked at me and he goes what's colored concrete
00:36hi i'm nemesis and this is the breakdown so i was speed dating a lot in these sessions trying
00:41to find the right people to work with people didn't like the way that i wrote and the way
00:46that i sang because it wasn't pop sensible enough my manager was like you know what i think we
00:51should try the uk they spend a bit more time on songwriting they're more gentle and nurturing with
00:56it so i hopped on a plane to london and that's where i found danny and pablo in different sessions
01:04it was actually my manager who said you really liked those two guys from random sessions spaced
01:08out why don't you try putting them together and see what happens and the first time i put them
01:13he put them together in a session it was this song was created
01:24i had rented this airbnb on a whim usually i'm like i'll pick the same airbnb but for some reason
01:30something told me there was something special about this one so i go up these flight of stairs
01:34and i open the door and i just like my jaw dropped because i was like this looks like
01:38my middle school like the bedroom that i didn't have so i pulled out my notes app and i started
01:45writing what it felt like to experience that as an adult what had happened was we grew up very
01:52i guess we weren't really very comfortable financially like we had mold under the carpets
01:58we didn't have enough money to put new flooring in but my mom knew she had to get rid of the mold
02:04so to kind of distract us she told us we can paint the concrete floors whatever color we wanted
02:09and she promised that you know your dad's gonna come into some money he's he started his own
02:14business and when he comes into money you guys should start planning your rooms from now so i
02:19started planning out this bedroom and as the next summer rolled in no money came in and we still
02:24kept planning for this room and i never got it so i was just sitting there as an adult and i started
02:29writing woke up today in my middle school bedroom except it isn't mine but the one i'd always
02:36dreamed of and i didn't really know what i was going to do with that i just knew i should write
02:41down and document this moment as it felt i don't go into a session with an like emotion an idea i
02:49have to execute i don't like to put myself in a box like that i go into a session and i see what
02:54the room's feeling so with this one we actually wrote the chorus where it was like
03:01and then i was like wait a minute this feels like that
03:05it feels like a sigh of release and then i i went back to my note tap and i was like hold on i wrote
03:11something a couple weeks ago and then we went through it and i even have like i don't know
03:16if this is allowed i have a few voice notes of when it was made
03:33poppy was like instead of a pause just hold the dreamed so i was like dreamed of yeah i have voice
03:41notes of like the entire album most of it's like us fighting and going like like actually though
03:48for this chorus i just said i'm looking for a feeling and you know the you know that like song
04:00so i told them it'd be really cool if i could do that and i was just making that noise in a
04:04corner and they were like if you really want to explore that we can and eventually we just
04:08started probably like for 10 minutes straight doing variations of going from that to like
04:14different keys and then it goes oh i figured it out and i remember when i went uh-huh uh-huh
04:22they were like that's it and this is this is how it turned out
04:38i got concrete on my feet
04:46poppy writes some of the best pop music probably in the industry right now and he's just so
04:54reserved he doesn't say much in the session he just kind of sits there like this and then he'll
04:58be like i got concrete on my feet and i'm like perfect danny is very intelligent danny is very
05:08calculated with every layer all i have to do is in a moment like that say it's supposed to feel
05:13like a dream state that i'm slowly waking up and as i'm writing the rest of the song
05:19danny's just cooking and i do this thing where i don't focus on the production i just write
05:26and either i'll stop whatever i'm doing to tell him i really like that whatever direction he's
05:32going or i'll stop and say i hate that remove it right now so he waits for those two reactions for
05:37me and i don't even realize that i'm doing it and he just kind of cooks and goes where his mind would
05:42and honestly the drums and all that was with him that was the first song i ever didn't hate the
05:47drums if you notice like my previous stuff there's not a lot of drums on it i think it's the hardest
05:54thing to get right and that was the first time i realized it could it could really make a song
06:03have much more emotion than if it didn't so he did it like a heartbeat like in a dream or something
06:09like in between i guess in the in between it's not quite you're conscious yet but you're not
06:18fully disappearing and non-existent okay so here are the drums isolated danny this one's for you
06:25so
06:43there's a correlation between how quickly you drive how quickly you walk how quickly you act
06:47on things with how little you have in your bank account you're always like why is this person in
06:53a porsche driving so slow and you want to honk at them and you think they think they're better than
06:57you it's not there's just less urgency because they most likely are more comfortable financially
07:03so when i learned that i was like i need to slow down i need to start moving slower
07:08and if if i do that i can kind of manifest it in my life being an independent artist and releasing
07:15this entirely independent the hardest thing you could do is like spend money on yourself
07:19and i was like backed into a corner where i had no other option so i had to free myself from this
07:27mind this mindset of like scarcity and having it control my life or else this album would have
07:34never come out so i literally just use my savings entirely and everything i've made over the last
07:40two years and i put it right back into this project and it was like really hard like i cry
07:46like every day because every dollar just means so much more because it's my own i'm getting so
07:52emotional i think younger me would be proud of this like this album and just betting on myself
07:58and even if like this is my last album or if i never make something again at least i did it like
08:03100 and i don't know that most artists could could say that they did that so i wish i could
08:09like be as cool as pharrell or someone for this part but you know what i mean you should be like
08:14this is the second verse
08:34so that's the metaphor i never looked in my high i'm not saying my high neighbor's swimming pool
08:40which it does sound like that i realized after but it's in my eye like i just added an extra
08:46syllable never looked in my high neighbor's swimming pool unless i was making sure it hadn't
08:54dried out can't let it dry out or go south my dad always told us this was a saying he used to say
09:01never look into your neighbor's bowl unless you're making sure they have enough if you're
09:05going to glance over it's to offer some of your food to make sure that they have enough
09:10so the swimming pool isn't actually that the pool's out of water it's just it was made out
09:16of concrete and i thought it went really well with the saying that my dad always said and i
09:20think you could tell i'm being a bit more playful at the second like i'm not taking it as seriously
09:24i just hate being heavy i think everything about my image and my sound is so serious
09:31and as much as i try to let go of that and forget it i like the world won't let me
09:36so i just hate being serious i just want to be goofy i want to just be a girl that can write
09:42songs about like love and but i just can't not because i i literally can't it's that
09:49like the world expects more of me i think and i don't want to be that person
09:53yeah so the second verse was the first time i ever said can you put
09:57like auto-tune or something on my voice i think we ended up removing it in the end but then the outro
10:23i was going for like emotion heap-esque you know but i don't know i just don't want to be
10:33myself for a second so i told him to slap that on and then it was just so much easier to write like
10:39i get why charlie xx and all these people just it's so you're it's like an out-of-body experience
10:44it's not you anymore it doesn't feel so personal concrete wall concrete floor
10:50but i was like metaphor i we can't ignore i can't ignore you had me running you had me running i got
10:59concrete on my feet so i'm not blaming myself for the fast pace and everything it's the situation
11:05entirely is what had me running um so i'm like not blaming myself in any way yeah 40 noah is mixing
11:14the entire album he mixed into co-production across the entire project so basically um when
11:21i was dropped when i was dropping my label in october he saw that and then reached out and
11:26was like if you ever need anything from me i'm extending my my studio my myself my craft my
11:34engineer whatever you need like i thought he was just being nice so i was like oh thanks thanks
11:38cool cool cool you know and i was also nervous like why would the best years in the industry
11:43be reaching out to me and then i went to like an event for the first time in a couple weeks
11:48and he walks through the door and he's like no man i'm like oh my god and we finally meet and
11:53then the next day i went into his studio and i showed him the album and by the second song he's
11:59like i'm mixing this shit he's like i'm mixing the shit and i was like okay and he was i was
12:03like why mixing though like do you want to add anything he's like i just know how good this
12:09could sound if i mix it and i was like say less and then he ended up adding a few layers to quite
12:15a bit of the songs and it's just subtle and it's like he gave an outro on the first song as well
12:21old body new mind he added like an outro and he just really synchronized the album so well with
12:26jod his engineers help us as well so yeah that was like the best thing that could have happened
12:31especially because money was tight and i didn't have an investor and he was the most generous
12:37person like by forever not only was i getting like the assistant of someone mixing my album so
12:46they didn't i didn't have to worry about that financially but i was getting like the best
12:49person in the industry to do it so it really it felt like i was winning just from that alone and
12:55it was all because of him i've always been the underdog and i've always um respected the underdog
13:00and i just didn't think i'd be the underdog for this long oh i'm just gonna take a moment
13:07i'm so sensitive i'm such a pisces a year ago was in a situation where i had an album that
13:14every label was like fighting over if i wanted a session with anyone i could most likely get it
13:21it was like the easiest thing because my talent my music spoke for more than what i look like and
13:27stuff i didn't want to do it alone but i realized that it's what was meant to happen i think with
13:33this album it no longer was mine but it was more of a stance rather a political stance that i was
13:41making by releasing it and persevering i hope it does well i hope it's perceived well and i hope
13:50people really like it not for my own ego but just to show i wasn't somebody to really be messed with