Nadia Ali rose to international acclaim with her hit “Rapture,” which lit up clubs and playlists around the world. With her unusual new super-group HYLLS – where most of the band-members remain anonymous – Ali has shifted from electronic dance to lyrical pop music. The mysterious group’s new album “Once” combines 12 singles, released over the past 12 months.
“We like the idea of revealing our story one layer at a time,” Ali explains. “We want people to hear the music first and fall in love with the soundscape that we’re creating before placing any judgments based on the names involved.”
HYLLS mixes deep bass drops with warm rhythms and reflective lyrics. This project brings together Ali’s much-loved club beats with a softer lyricism than her past work. Ali has incorporated the stylings of the Bollywood films her Pakistani parents watched throughout her childhood. She merges their South Asian soundtrack with Western influences from her childhood in New York City. The infectious fusion is a hit with fans.
Nadia Ali Experiences Bollywood in Queens
Born in Libya to Pakistani parents, Ali moved with her family moved to Queens in the mid-1980s. New York also provided the perfect platform for networking, as her high school job working at Versace catapulted her onto the scene of rising music producers.
“Queens was a bustling/multi-ethnic environment with lots of musical diversity,” she recalls. “It exposed me to all kinds of music genres: from Latin to hip hop to rock music.”
For Ali, this musical background enhances her musicality. “[Because] I am not classically trained, I was able to easily fuse Eastern and Western sounds as I did not have to abide by any rules,” she notes.
Since launching her solo career in 2006, Ali has earned spots on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Play Chart and the UK’s Singles Chart, widespread praise from MTV commentators, and a nomination for the Juno Award, a prestigious Canadian music award.
Nadia Ali Sets Her Voice to a New Tune
HYLLS is Nadia Ali’s first shift away from EDM (electronic dance music) towards lighter melodies. With a soundtrack of mellow drum beats and distant bells, Ali incorporates honest lyrics about love and fear. While her voice had always been paired with fast-paced club music, she made the decision to experiment with acoustic and electronic scales.
“A few years ago, I slowed down the pace of my touring and had some time to reflect on everything,” she says. “I felt like I had reaches many of the milestones in my life but still had this feeling of uncertainty.”
So, Ali assembled HYLLS as a band to support her stylistic evolution. In a twist, all the friends she tapped from the music industry to join HYLLS do not reveal their identities. It seems they are Grammy nominees, and Ali hints that she has worked with them in the past.
A Mysterious Super-Group of Grammy-Nominees
“HYLLS is really a passion project that came about from spending a lot of time in the studio,” Ali explains. “We love being completely independent and relish the freedom to do whatever we want.”
Beyond keeping her collaborators anonymous, Ali’s free-styling approach to HYLLS included rolling out the band’s first album in a unique way. Rather than release a couple of singles and then a full album, Ali decided to release a new single from the “Once” album every month, slowly revealing to fans of her new lyrical take.
“The response has been wonderful,” she says. “People are excited. They have been messaging me every month saying that they can’t wait for the next one to come out.”
HYLLS has now released the full album, available on Spotify here.
