Fatima AL QADIRI

It was a freezing night in February 2019, and onstage in Berlin as her alter ego, Shaneera, Fatima Al Qadiri was magnificently disdainful. Over the sound of her nimble, joyous club tracks—a mutant hybrid of UK grime music and the percussion of the Persian Gulf—she flicked her long black hair with venom. I wove through the heaving nightclub crowd to get a closer look. Her face was caked in layers of stage makeup but I could still make out a distinctly bored expression. It was an act, of course, but the audience adored the music and her haughty manner. They danced away all their tiredness and the cold.  As fully as she embodied the persona of Shaneera that night, the character was just one waypoint on a restless musical journey that threads avant-garde club music with a sharp stream ...