Naima B. Robert – Mizz Ninas Hijrah to Allah
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AI: Transcript ©
Assalamu alaikum everyone.
Welcome to another beautiful
Jumu'ah.
Alhamdulillah.
We are here again. Oh, look at that
bright sunlight. Oh, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo.
Beautiful day out here in West Yorkshire. A
bit too much sunlight, I'd say. And I'm
so, so happy to have you guys joining
me today. As you know, I have a
special guest with me today, Insha'Allah.
And, Insha'Allah, she's be coming on very soon.
If you've been paying attention to my page
then you know who the special guest is,
but I will wait for her to come
on before I do my introductions inshallah.
Are you having a fantastic week? Well, you
had a fantastic week and that you are
all ready inshallah for this Jummah and for
this weekend.
How are you?
I love. How are you?
Alhamdulillah. I'm good. I'm good. Good morning.
Good morning. Well, good evening to you, and
Yes. Again, good morning to me.
How has your week been, my love?
It's been good. I've been I've had a
really productive week.
Yeah.
And to end of the week with,
having live with you, that's awesome.
Exciting things for 2021.
So, yeah, it's been good. How about you,
Naima? Like, how's your week been?
You know what? It's been a good week.
I have to say.
It's been a good week. You know,
says so many people are, like, struggling at
the moment
with so many things going on, you know,
this pandemic, the lockdowns, and just the stresses
of life. Right? So I always I'm I'm
always grateful when we can have, like, a
good day or a good week, and we
can, you know, have a chance to communicate
and connect with, you know, other sisters who
lift up our spirits, and you always lift
up my spirit. I love you so much,
Aw. I love you too.
So, I mean, I know that probably everybody
on this call already knows who you are.
We are already a 188 people.
So for those few on the call who
don't know who you are, give us just
the potted history of miss Nina. Just a
quick, like, 2 line intro.
Okay. Two liner intro? That's hard.
We can expect a thing to
but just Well well, for those those of
you who don't know me,
I my name is Shazrina Azman, but I
go by the name of miss Nina,
also known as Miss Nina. I'm from Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia,
and I'm a former artist,
from Malaysia.
And, in a nutshell,
I did my hijrah, my spiritual hijrah in
2013.
And
I'm still here today,
doing and learning more about the dean. And,
yeah.
I've got a couple of, projects out. Call
the app and docs TV and, yeah, that's
that's pretty much it in a nutshell, I
think. Yeah. That's that's good enough. We can
there. Sorry. That's not even two lines. That
was, like, maybe 10 lines.
It's good enough. I think, obviously, you and
I, we've met in person. We've had a
chance to do work together and, you know,
guys, you know how she seems so sweet?
Like, you see her on videos and that
kind of thing. She really is.
She's just a a a light, and it's
been wonderful
you as well, you know, as a client.
But,
when we met, I didn't know the Miss
Nina hip hop.
You know, I wasn't on the scene. I
wasn't in Malaysia like that. I don't know.
Right? And so I had to go and
sort of you know, when we all started
working together,
the story and this book, I had to
kind of go and do some research. And,
like, you were really
you were really a hip hop.
I was a hip hop head. I was
a hip hop head. I was like, if
you were not into hip hop, then
you're not down. I'm sorry. You know? That
was
I was so into it,
and it was my life. I I lived.
I breathed it. I I I worked,
in the industry with it for many, many
years. I mean, I started listening to hip
hop when I was, like, 8 years old.
I mean, imagine a a 8 year old
girl listening to, like, Beastie Boys and Run
DMC, and it's like, hey. You know?
And, also, though, it's also, like, really interesting
to me to you're a girl from Malaysia
in Malaysia
listening to this music, this this it's very
urban sound
from the United States, from the Bronx, and,
you know, from LA, etcetera. What do you
think it was that that drew you to
that, especially at such a young age?
I definitely it was it was the music.
It was the sound. It was the beat
because I I loved moving. I loved dancing.
And and I and I you know, my
brothers and sisters, you know, my older brothers
and sisters, they all studied in the states.
So back in the day, we didn't have,
you know, Internet like this, and we didn't
have the smartphone. You know, everything is so
easy right now. Back then, it's like, okay.
What did my brother bring back? A cassette
tape, you know. He bought a record back.
And then I'd listen to it and then
I'd just get into it. And I think,
you know, my family has always been into
music. You know, we've always, like, played music
by the poolside,
and we'll be, like, you know, having fun
and, you know, it's just, you know,
Yeah. I got into it in a very,
very early age. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the
the thing the other thing that was, like,
surprising to me is, like, you were, like,
a legit celebrity. Like, you know, people would
say, oh, you know, I used to do
this. I mean, I also used to sing
back in the day. I used to go
in a band and, you know, all this
kind of thing. But Oh, Naina, you didn't
tell me this. No wonder. Every time, you
know, every time Naina and me get together,
she's like, Nina, come on. Let's jam. Nina,
let's jam. And I'm like, okay.
Do you remember the time that we were
in the car in, in Malaysia?
We're going to do that, queen of the
dean interview, and I started to just ice
ice, baby. But they're like Naeema can drop
some really good beat boxes. Okay? If y'all
don't know, something about Naeema that you didn't
know, she can beatbox real good.
Collaborate.
Listen. Okay. Any last one for that.
So
so so we've got this high life.
I and I know because I've read, you
know, the first draft of your memoir, I
know that it was a high life, but
it was also a low life, and there
was a lot going on. Maybe things that
people don't know that you're only really gonna
share with them when the book comes out.
How Yeah. How difficult was it for you
to to kind of make the decision to
to be, you know, to be, I guess,
transparent about your journey? And that's, like, a
real question because we know, like, in the
Muslim world, we have standards, and it's it
can be difficult
to admit that, you know,
you did things other than what people
expect. So, like, on a real tip,
how difficult was it for you to make
that decision to say, you know what? I'm
I'm going to be transparent and tell my
story.
It took me a while,
especially, you know, there
maybe some of you have already heard my
story before, but there are certain parts of
my life that I I don't really share.
I've never shared with anybody, and I thought
that a book would be the best way
to do it because we have
time to really think about the words that
we wanna put out
rather than just, you know, a quick interview.
And then what if I say the wrong
thing?
And,
you know, it took
brought me to some really vulnerable like, a
really vulnerable space. Like, I was,
taken back and and I had to remind
myself that, you know what?
I'm still here today. And and the reason
why I'm going back is only because I
wanna take a lesson from it and that's
it. And and I think what really drove
me forward in in actually, you know, having
the confidence to say, yes, I'm gonna do
this is because of that. It's because,
you know, Allah put me through certain things
and I, you know, Alhamdulillah, I survived it.
And I feel like these stories could help
somebody else.
You know, it could really help somebody else
who's going through the same thing, you know,
in the maybe a different generation, but it's
it's the same struggle.
So I was like, okay, I think I
gotta do this. And,
you know, inshallah, my parents are gonna be
okay with it as well, but yeah, it
should be good, you know. Get the best
to my parents, my husband, okay. No. It's
it's, you know, it's a privilege really for
us to be able to kind of be
working with you to kind of bring the
story out. You know, just as you mentioned
about, you know, going through those struggles in
a new generation,
And, obviously,
compared to when you were in your sort
of MTV heyday and you were on the
stage and doing all of that compared
to then,
the celebrity world is so much bigger now.
Don't you feel? Like, the whole Oh, yeah.
High
followers
and and and trending and hashtags and all
of that, that wasn't around so much when
you were on the scene. Do you think
that we glamorize
celebrity?
Even in as young Muslims or as Muslims,
do you think that we
Okay.
Yeah. I think I think we do glamorize
glamorize,
especially now with social media.
And she's there. Did you get my question,
sis? Did you see did I said?
I did. Oopsie.
The connection is a bit slow, I think.
Uh-oh.
So, guys, just while we wait for the
message to come back, why don't you tell
me in the comments?
As people in general and even Muslims, do
you think that we
can hear me. I'm gonna let miss Nina
pop out and,
and come back in again.