Artist to Know: Neena Roe

Neena Roe:‘I’m A Work in Progress’

Photos by: Dante Rionda

The Iranian-American artist’s first single, “New in Town” is available on all streaming platforms.

Photo by Dante Rionda

During the moments she isn’t making music, attending grad classes at the Medill School of Journalism, or modeling for Beats by Dre campaigns, you might find Neena Roe wandering her neighborhood in Chicago, reading Rumi or Hafez, or cooking up some butternut squash soup.

In September, the Detroit-native recently released her first single, “New In Town.” And for the burgeoning musician, she says her dreams are only expanding.  “Things that seemed impossible two years ago when I started writing and recording are now feeling more realistic,” she says. “I’m picturing things I literally couldn’t a year ago.”

She caught up with me to talk about how she learned not to get in Facebook fights, staying tough as a person of color, and the intersection of her music and her identity.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.  

You’re just getting started! How do you think your personal growth has affected your career?

In terms of music, I think that the more that I grow and the more I live, what I write about becomes more mature and complex. 

One of the things I hope to accomplish through my music – and this was something that I didn’t always consider when I started – Is to create music for women that encompasses a wider range of emotions that we feel.  Many women are placed into boxes when we perform. You’re either pissed and slashing holes in tires, or maybe you’re drunk and in love. 

I want to capture the moments that happen in-between those moments. There’s so much that builds up to these moments. So many love songs, we don’t feel comfortable not knowing. Like, yeah, I don’t know what I want. So, you can stick around or you can go. I think that the air of confidence is something I want to bring into my music. The certainty of uncertainty.

As an Iranian-American woman, you have a pretty unique perspective on American culture at the moment. What do you want people to understand about your identity when they listen to your music?

I’ve been trying to find different ways to weave my culture into my music. I recently had my dad play the Persian drums so I could incorporate that recording into my music. 

Poetry is a huge, HUGE part of Persian culture. We have had some of the most amazing poets to ever exist that came out of Iran, like Rumi and Hafez. I have memories of my grandfather, who just passed in July, reciting poems to me. Hundreds of poems, from memory! And he was 90 years old doing this. I’m fluent in Farsi, and he would say these poems in Farsi, they would be so eloquent. And then he would break them down to me and explain it to me.  Committing things to memory, and making things memorable, and sharing things through storytelling is such a huge part of Persian culture. I want my songs to carry that. The structure of a story. To be easily memorable and repeatable.

What’s your favorite poem?

There is a poem about death, by Rumi. It talks about how the narrator is dead already, but not to stand over his grave and weep. Even though I’m in the ground, I’m really everywhere, in the sky. It’s about what we do when we grieve, and how we are trying to give comfort.

In a lot of marginalized and minority communities, we are such resilient people. Even in moments of weakness and sadness, we all want to pick each other up instead of dwelling on our pain and our grief.

As a person of color, experiences have taught you that most growing up? 

My mother and my sister are both refugees. They escaped from Iran due to religious persecution. My family is no stranger to persecution. Growing up, I always knew that my mother and sister escaped from their country to the west here because they were not wanted in their own land. 

Especially after 9/11, I faced so much racism, whether it was from other children or TSA. Even the most recent travel ban. I’ve had people say the most disgusting things to me as a result of my culture. 

How did you learn how to handle that?

My mom. She toughened me up. She would always say: “Why do you care what they say? Why do you care? If you’re going to cry over everything everyone says, then you are always going to be crying.” [laughs]. And I am, I’m such a crybaby. But yeah, my mom. 

Younger generations, I think we have the luxury to find our own limits. Older generations, they had to be tough constantly. Where do you think you draw the line between being tough and being vulnerable?

I’ve definitely learned to pick my battles. [laughs]. When I was younger, I was fighting every single fight. Even on Facebook, I was in the comments like, “Oh you wanna go?”

In college, I’d be on the phone speaking in Farsi, and kids would be looking at me in fear. It was so insane how freaked out they looked. It made me so sad that our culture has created such hostility and fear. It breaks my heart. It got to the point where I was like what are you doing. My energy could have been much better spent investing in myself and in people who want to learn, not the people who are never going to change. I will happily sit patiently and have a conversation about my identity if it’s a person who is coming in with a humble posture of learning. The people who sit with me and have a conversation, I’ll happily talk through it.

With songwriting, do you treat yourself the same way? Are you patient with yourself or do you get frustrated with yourself?

I feel as if a lot of artists will write songs in the heat of the moment. But, when it comes to songwriting for me, whether it’s in the scenarios where people making racist comments or something, if I’m emotional, I won’t be able to write a song. Maybe I’ll journal and write my emotions down, but the creative process comes later. Songwriting for me in hindsight.

I typically write all my songs with my guitarist, Jay Evans. We will sit down and he will start playing something, and usually, that brings up some memory or something, and sure enough, I journaled about it. So, I’ll go back into my journal, and shape up my thoughts into a more eloquent idea.

Photo by Dante Rionda

Is being constantly aware of how people are presenting their identity, and how people are judging your identity, something that affects your day-to-day?

I’ve always been a social justice-minded person, even before woke culture came to exist. I grew up in Detroit on the east side of the city, and I was witness to a lot of inequity and injustice. It’s one of the most segregated states in the country. I lived in the city until a certain point and then I moved to a suburb, which was overwhelmingly white and wealthy, and the city of Detroit was overwhelmingly black and also people were of a lower socioeconomic status. 

My young brain was processing this and I felt that it was unfair. Why are these kids on this side of 8-mile afforded so much more than kids on the other side?

Now, in my life, I’m just hyperaware of everything I see. So, though my lyricism, and through what I portray, I try to be cognizant of that. And to be as sensitive as I can.  

How do you see the overlap between the processes in journalism versus music?

To me, it’s all one and the same. I’m a storyteller. That’s my function as a human. Journalism is storytelling and songwriting is storytelling. I was recently at a teacher’s strike interviewing teachers and families. When I’m out in the field interviewing people, hearing their stories informs my writing, and what I want to write about. And it also informs some of my lyrics as well. 

Even more, writing constantly for school makes me a more eloquent person, and it makes me communicate better in my music. Songwriting is such a practice, you have to write every single day. The school has forced me to write every single day, and it’s definitely helped my songwriting as well. And learning people’s stories is making me a better storyteller. It’s all connected.

What can we expect from you in 2020? 

In 2020, hopefully, I will have… 

Wait, no I’m not going to say hopefully. [laughs]. I will have another single out in December. And I will do a music video in 2020, for sure. More shows, and an EP!