Pheeyownah (pronounced Fiona) is Feyona Naluzzi, a young singer-songwriter and performer from Stockholm, Sweden. You might know her as a dancer in the dance activist group JUCK, but she’s also been writing songs since she was 9 years old. Pheeyownah’s grip over her creative concept is tight, but it has to be so. The DIY-attitude she nourishes is a means and a necessity for an artist who wishes to be free to create exactly what she wants.
In a recent interview with Rodeo Mag, Pheeyownah emphasizes the importance of this, but we can confirm that she sounds like Bjork with nuances of Rnb. Pheeyownah’s songs are electronic ballads with a steady rhythm section, rich with vocal layers of mystic lyrics, which will delight anyone who enjoys creativity and individuality. The fact that Pheeyownah produces her music doesn’t make her more precious or valuable than if she was a mere performer, but it does indeed make her a rarer and unique artist. Pheeyownah, if you are reading this – KUDOS for following the greatest gender bending trends in female vocal mastering by female producers and putting yourself in the same lot as Planningtorock in the last 30 seconds for the video of ‘Pose When Exposed’.
Electronic music is hardly something new. The birth of it is marked with the invention of the first electronic instrument ever, the telharmonium, dating as far back as in 1902, which makes electronic music a century old discipline. The year is 2010, Lina Thomsgård founded Rattviseformedlingen (aka Equalisters in English) called out a club in Stockholm for hosting only men DJs, and presented them with a list of just as competent female DJs. The list was crowdsourced – and after the list was handed over to the club owner, no one could argue female DJs were non existent. Still, the exclusivity continues. In 2014 DJ Mag issues a list of top 100 DJs in the world. The whole world. One look at it will have your eyes scrolling down endlessly in disbelief for having only two female acts out of a hundred acts altogether. In short, it is still more likely to see a woman perform something a man has produced, than the other way round. That’s just one of those unwritten laws of the entertainment industry. Women ornament, men build the structure. (spoiler: sarcasm galore)
Linda Nochlin’s essay ‘Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists’ (1971) is easily translated into a question – why have there been no great women electronic music acts? No one can say there hasn’t been any, but the public doesn’t know enough about the founding pioneers Delia Derbyshire, Daphne Oram and many others. Why is electronic music still such a boy’s club and what can we do to heal this irregularity?
As hopeless as it may sound, our lives are made from the prejudice fabric, and hardly a day goes by in which we or someone we know isn’t directly affected by it. Calling people out as racist, homophobic or misogynist ‘hardly does the trick though. Sure, we shame these people openly, and often sanctions will follow, but only changing the language we use doesn’t cure the issue in its core. The “marked ones” still suffer the same ills, regardless of what they’re called.
By the look of things, unless there appears a consistent resistance to the systems that shun woman away from circles where they can achieve the status of high-end top notch female electronic musicians, female producers are destined to reside in obscure areas far away from the eyes of the wide public. But hey, and it’s not all dull and gloomy. Lets keep our eyes open and strive to even out the score. We’ve had Bjork, Grimes, Ellen Allien, Robyn, M.I.A, ISA GT, and now we also have Pheeyownah.
For more info go to >> www.pheeyownah.com
+ youtube.com/user/pheeyownahofficial
Pheeyownah – Pose When Exposed
Idea and concept: Feyona Naluzzi
Stylist: Amanda Arin
Director: Samuel Thylander, Emelie Enlund
Camera: Linus Enlund
Grading and editing: N.P Gustafsson
