The Dutch-Kurdish singer-songwriter Naaz Mohammed, known by her stage name Naaz, has become famous in the Netherlands and abroad. Having started her songwriting journey in her bedroom at the age of 15, she has since produced three albums and now performs as an opening act for international singers.
Her father, a doctor from Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan Region, and her mother, a Kurd from Eastern Kurdistan (northwestern Iran), were initially hesitant about her aspirations to become a singer. After graduating from high school she focused solely on art, not attempting to continue her studies or get a regular job. “I’m a completely self-taught musician,” she said.
Her family fled Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. “My father is a doctor and helped many Kurds during the war. His life was threatened as the Iraqis thought he was helping their enemy. He had to flee after that,” Naaz told Kurdistan Chronicle.
However, with time, her parents gradually accepted her dream, allowing her to make studio recordings of her songs with the help of a Dutch-Kurdish producer.
The power of music
“My parents see the impact my lyrics have had on people of all ages and ethnicities. I don’t think they realized the power of music until then. They thought of it more as entertainment, but now they see how music can be healing,” she said.
“My father is a doctor, so we now joke that I am a healer with my words, too. They love my Kurdish songs the most. My mother says it reminds her of my grandmother singing in Kurdish when doing chores back in Kurdistan. That makes me very proud.”
She initially started her career by participating in Holland’s Got Talent in 2014. Two years later, she released her first single and delivered several sold-out performances in Europe. She was the opening act for the European performances of Melanie Martinez’s K-12 Tour in 2019.
In 2020, Naaz took a break from music, later returning with her first album Never Have I Ever in 2023.
She has won two Edison awards, two awards at the Music Moves Europe Talent Awards in 2020, and performed last year as the opening act for American artist Lana Del Rey in Amsterdam. Her picture was also shown in 2022 by Spotify on a billboard in New York City’s Times Square in 2022.
“I’ve won several awards, which I’m very grateful for. It’s great to get recognition like that, but the greatest gift to me is when I can see someone truly getting something meaningful out of my music,” she told Kurdistan Chronicle.
“For me it’s not about the amount of people I reach. I just want to reach my people, the ones who need me, because I need them, too.”
“I’m very proud to be Kurdish, I wear it like a badge of honor!”
Most of Naaz’s music is in English, but her most recent album includes two songs in Kurdish: “Kche Baralla” (Loose Girl) and “Azadi” (Freedom). “Kche Baralla” was also selected for the Grammy Submissions in 2023. “Only five people are nominated so I did not get the actual nomination; nevertheless, I was extremely honored by this recognition – especially for a Kurdish song.”
“My friend Beri Shalmasi taught me about the origins of ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’,” she said, referring to the rallying cry of “women, life, freedom” used by the protest movement in Iran that emerged after the Iranian morality police killed Jina Amini, a Kurdish woman, in 2022. “Before this I had not realized the beautiful equality we have in Kurdish culture. I did not know this as a diaspora child,” she told Kurdistan Chronicle.
“It made me feel so proud of my ethnicity that I naturally felt more drawn to sing in Kurdish. Azadi is based on the slogan I just mentioned, and ‘Kche Baralla’ is related to how society can often dismiss ambitious women as ‘loose’ and look down on them, when we should be proud when someone is brave enough to enter new worlds.”
In 2024, she plans to write and produce a second album. She hopes to one day perform in her homeland of Kurdistan. “It would be an honor. I get wonderful feedback from Kurdish people, especially women. It always makes me so happy, it feels like meeting my sisters. I’m very proud to be Kurdish, I wear it like a badge of honor!”
