“Being a person of mixed backgrounds, people do want to treat you as ‘the other’, but they’re not sure which ‘other’ to treat you as,” says Shameem Taheri-Lee. The soul/jazz singer/songwriter was born in Perth while her mother is Iranian and her father Chinese-Malaysian.
“I was a little immune from being stereotyped or boxed, but at the same time people would ask, ‘Where do you come from?’ as if I don’t come from Australia.
“I think that’s what prejudice is in Australia – it’s not overt; it’s not that people go out of their way to be unkind to somebody, but it doesn’t occur to them to be kind to them in the same way that they would with someone who they’re more familiar with.”
A deeply spiritual person, Taheri-Lee’s Baha’i faith is at the core of who she is: “It’s the thing that gives me a sense of a moral compass in my life and a purpose,” she explains, “and that purpose it gives me is to try and improve not only myself every day and become a better person, but also to try and contribute to making the world a better place – everyone can do that; if everyone did their own small, little thing, then it would really transform the world.
“My mother is a Baha’i and she brought me up learning about the Baha’i faith, but the Baha’i is also a religion that promotes getting to know the truth to yourself and not just blindly following someone else. It’s a Baha’i teaching that when you come of age, you have to make a decision to be Baha’i yourself; you don’t automatically have to do it because your parents are.”
The title of Taheri-Lee’s second album, The Second City, comes from a Persian book, The Seven Valleys, by Baha’u’llah – the founder of the Baha’i faith – which talks about the seven stages a seeker of God journeys through.
“It makes me think of my own spiritual journey, and the ups and downs that you go through in life when you’re trying to reach your goals. I really love that book for that reason. The second part of the book I find particularly relevant and touching and I really love the language in it, and that chapter is about the stage of love and it inspired one of the songs on the album.” The song she’s referring to is Chill in the Fire.
Baha’i music is markedly different to the pop music Taheri-Lee and her mother also enjoyed. “The music I listened to was either Baha’i music, which is all about trying to perfect one’s inner spiritual condition and it was all about beautiful things like the unity of mankind,” she says. “Every now and then, I would discover an artist who would be able to beautifully marry [Baha’i and pop] and I thought, ‘I want to become that kind of artist who can marry meaningful lyrics with really infectious, amazing music’.”
Inspired by soulful singers and great storytellers, Taheri-Lee has been greatly influenced by Sting, Alicia Keys and Jewel: “If I could dare to dream, I would love to write a song with Sting.” Her sophomore album, The Second City, may have a more modern, R&B sound than her self-titled debut album, but few artists marry soul, jazz, R&B and Persian chants in the way Taheri-Lee does.
“I’ve been working on my songwriting and how to write more well-structured songs, and how to really get a message across in the short space of time that you have in a song,” says the spirited singer/songwriter. “I feel that the songs I’ve written on this album are stronger.”
BY CHRISTINE LAN
