SuKha Never Dies

I'm SuKha Never Dies, and I'm a little bit of a fashion icon and a designer and a rapper/singer – essentially a being striving for art in every way that they can.

My style was developed through the adaptation of what ‘things’ I had access to growing up within the boundaries of my poor immigrant background; I grew up in Saudi Arabia, watching a lot of Arabic pop culture, Bollywood films, and anime. After immigrating to Canada, I was further immersed into anime culture, role-playing games (where you can dress up your avatar and fight monsters), and the heavy metal/gothic music scene. After recognising these inspirations, it actually makes a lot of sense how my style comes together with big boots, big scarf styles, South Asian jewellery, and, sometimes, chains, leather and latex.

Firstly, it is important to recognise that ‘othering’ is an important political strategy to make it easier to justify wars and unjust distribution of wealth and access to basic necessities. During the war on terror and the unfortunate series of events following Septermber 11, 2001, in order to put a face on the villain, the headscarf and any form of wrapped headwear became a symbol for identifying these ‘villians’ or ‘others.’ Therefore, a headscarf on a woman's head became politicised and associated with Islam and terrorism, even though white American women have worn headscarves through out history, with notable examples including Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy in the ‘60s.
As far as the politics of Black women in America goes, it's beyond the scope of a few sentences to explain the complexity of how Black women have been oppressed under racism laws, from once being forced to wear headscarves to now being questioned for why they wear it.
That being said, there is also an issue of sexism between the cultures that follow Islam where, like American culture, they find it their duty to control how women chose to dress.
As a Muslim woman, I get to choose what I want to wear and when I want to wear it.
Unfortunately, there's no other way to exist, except constantly under the scrutiny of those who impose their judgment on me, and me having to ignore them and follow my own path.

I have a personal attachment to the sari as I've grown up watching all the beautiful women in my life wear them with so much grace and confidence. To me, a sari is symbolically a form of hyper-femininity. And I have the privilege of having the knowledge on how to drape them in so many forms.

I'm not a very good stylist! So I actually have never actually fully styled anyone (meaning from hair, to makeup, to other aspects). Most of my attempted styling is just to show the pieces off rather than showing off my sense of style on others. In the future, I would like to look into learning how to style others, for sure.

I have since started to sew again and have been thinking of newer ideas. A creative slump is inevitable when you're not consistently making a living and have to focus your attention on finding ways to survive while still maintaining your desire to pursue your dreams. My advice to myself whenever I'm in a creative slump is simply to disengage from all social media and social events, and to focus on living in the moment and solving the problems ahead of me one step at a time. What is meant for me will come to me, because I am my art as much as the art is what I create.

 I do love to travel alone, and the last place I visited was Istanbul, 2 months ago. My memorable moments are always tied to how I somehow attract amazing artists as friends whenever I set foot to a new destination. For example, when I visited the cities New York, London, Paris, and Capetown – I had the similar experience of finding creative friends in a very short period of time and creating music videos and photoshoots. I honestly live by the blind faith that good friends and art will find me. Currently, I'm trying to put that blind faith into love and success.

I never had any guidance as a ‘solo woman’ because I come from a very family oriented culture, where I don't know a single woman in my family who has ever traveled alone. For this reason, I was left to the wild with nothing but my naive faith that everything will be alright. Now that I am older, and I have met many people and had many terrible and positive experiences... I think I did the best I could at the time, with the money, passion and time I had. Those experiences helped me level up in confidence. Now, I will focus more on gaining financial independence, as that opens up the door for safer locations for housing/hotels, better food options, safer travel options, and, of course, more money to spread to artists.

I think a good metaphor to explain how I broke my shackles is about how, if you tie a baby elephant to a pole, their strength will not be enough to break free to freedom. As the elephant grows into a fine, strong adult, they still stay tied to that same pole, believing that they're not strong enough to break free to freedom. It will take many, many, many terrifying realisations and steps, and I kid you not, the willingness to be subjected to being ‘kicked out’ or essentially ‘losing something,’ to become who you are. I've done it more than once, and it has not been easy, but I know no other way of being alive.
Many people on the internet think I'm lucky or I have it easy, while being pessimistic about their own ability to break free to do what they love. But I can see the baby elephant tied to the pole in their actions/words... It's almost as they let their fear of the unknown conquer the possibility of them finding their own path. That being said, I'm always evolving and re-evaluating what I want to be and what I want to do in the future. There's always room for change or growth.

Like I said earlier, people judge my life to be easy, and unfortunately, many insecure or self-righteous folks find it compelling to leave hateful messages. I deal with them by ignoring them, but sometimes I like to leave immature replies for fun.

My album was released in 2020, The Ugly Browngirl Mixtape 2020, Back of My Mind where I compiled music made in various cities around the world starting from the end of 2018, until the end of 2019. I am ultimately alternative in my style of music because the album begins in soft melodic tones and ends off in a heavier trap genre.

My music and fashion go very much hand in hand; this will be especially visible upon the release of my music videos. My fashion and my music is fun and always edging the politics of existing as who I am.