Well, I have to say after Covid it was kind of refreshing to live in that world again and recharge without the reality of the real world hitting you. Every now and then it's really necessary to do that. So, I definitely recommend it to everyone.

I think Dubai is really like a metaverse for me, it’s so surreal everything that happens in Dubai. It’s a whole city that has risen from nothing. That’s why I feel for me, it’s really close to the metaverse because it’s like an imagined city, its an imagined world.

Yeah, I remember I was on an aeroplane flying over Dubai about 15 years ago and I saw the Palm Islands from the top and it was being finished at the time and now it’s the most popping place for people to go on holiday. It’s crazy.

I don’t know, I feel like it’s quite interesting, but I have to see what comes from it. Sometimes I feel like it’s more of a trend word and it’s not necessarily becoming or taking over our actual world. I wonder if it’s really something that we will go into and will change our lives or let it take over a part of our real life or is it just another development in technology which has been going on for so long. I remember playing Sims when I was 14 years old and it’s basically the next level of the Sims. I don’t really see any change. You know what I mean?

So that’s why I have to see what comes from it. Right?

Absolutely, I agree. I don’t know either.

I think that social media has become a really important identity that I have. But I treat it as an identity. I feel like a lot of influencers or people that use social media as a job they see social media and their real world as one. In my case, it’s really two separate things. I don’t actually share a lot of real things on social media, most of them are an alter ego, imagined or something like that. I would definitely say that for me it’s doable because of that. It’s healthy and I can just leave it and be totally fine with it.

Absolutely.

It absolutely did and I think that’s because I was able to step away because I had such a different life at the time, being pregnant and nobody knew, because I didn’t share that. I could really take a step back and be my pregnant self instead of being too worried about my Sevdaliza alter ego online. I think that’s when I realised that to live a healthy normal life I should separate this from my real life because in my real life sometimes things go on that I don’t feel comfortable sharing or don’t want to share. I think that unfortunately now it’s hard but I think people should still have some kind of freedom and be able to decide what they want to share and Dahlia gave that space.

In basic terms, she helped with the music because she has AI technology and she can gather samples and randomly create melodies and harmonies, so they were also used. A lot of the posts were automated so sometimes there was like a whole month, which is quite rare for me, where I didn't have to do anything online. This was to take away a lot of the pressure from me during my pregnancy. It was really helpful and it kind of gave me the opportunity to have a peaceful pregnancy.

Absolutely, yeah for sure.

Yeah for sure! I think that is a good way of seeing it.

I would definitely be very inclusive. Bullying would not be allowed. There would be free medication and free access to medication needed for diabetics and for instance hormones for trans people; these would all be free. I would also change the schooling system. I would include a lot of holistic education, for instance education about practicalities of life. I think one of the biggest rules in my metaverse would be that bullying is not allowed (laughs) not online and not off line!

I think my architecture would be a combination of Zaha Hadid and Valerio Olgiati. They’re amazing and for me it would be hyper modern, but then still with a sense of ancient architecture. I really love the mosques in Isfahan in Iran and the way that the architecture is based around a holy concept. I think that is really amazing.

I am a Virgo, so I would definitely have almost everything in beige with a colour pop here and there (laughs).

Well, I think it’s almost the same and I think because we created this social media world with again a cycle of really unhealthy and unrealistic beauty standards. What happens now because Photoshop and Facetune are so accessible to everybody is that the beauty standards have become even more unrealistic. People actually try to become the real version of the thing that they photoshopped which is crazy because it’s really not possible without surgery. Back in the day the beauty standards were also very unrealistic but you could still do it without surgery. For instance in the Kate Moss era it was like heroin chic so people would not eat or in the Marilyn Monroe era it was the waist so women would wear corsets. They were still not healthy and natural but they were real. Now it’s crazy. It’s like you have to go through multiple surgeries in order to achieve these beauty standards which I think on one hand is very good because if people are really unhappy they should really do whatever they want with their bodies. But I also think it sets a very unhealthy and toxic standard for young women and sometimes I really worry about that.

I know a lot about it. I’m obsessed. But not because I want to do it but I am just obsessed with why people decide to go through this surgery because it’s the most dangerous surgery in the world.

Well, I think because we’ve driven an insane beauty standard to the new normal that’s why people go through it because they don't really have the knowledge of how crazy it is and how damaging it is.

It’s actually me when I was six months pregnant and I think that’s another interesting part about being on the Internet is that you can let people believe anything you want because at the time nobody knew I was six months pregnant. When I did this cover it was just tuned and it doesn't look like I’m six months pregnant.

Because I feel like it’s quite interesting to show how much robots can copy human beings and the line between them is really fading.

Not yet, but we are working on that.

Yeah for sure.

I felt not so attached to the robot necessarily but I did feel attached to her expressions because they freed me so it made me feel really calm knowing that she was there and she can always do things when I can't. So, she’s almost like a friend.

Yeah exactly, she’s a part of me that exists outside of me. The one that’s always working, that doesn’t need to sleep, that doesn’t need to eat, the one that is always there and always will be there when I don’t have the time or energy to do things. Of course, it feels like we have a bond

That’s the next step. It’s a bit expensive, we need to contact Elon for that.

A few years ago.

For sure!

I definitely think that my music videos have always been extended visions of my world. I always imagine these kinds of worlds where things take place. I feel like now it’s become more logical and easier to explain this vision to other people. People think, “Oh, it’s a Sevdaliza music video” and there is already has an expectation of what it’s going to be. Even though they’re very different from each other I always feel like there’s a certain common thread in every visual that I make. I would definitely say they’re not attached to my real world, they’re always like fantasies in my imagination, an alternative universe.

Yes, I think so actually, even though they’re very different. I do think they all live in one universe, because it's the Sevdaliza universe.

Um, I have this imagination for where I want to take a song that’s already been finished and sometimes you know, I work on songs for so long that, that’s how they are in my world. So, I bring in someone else and see what they are going to make from it. That’s what I did for Oh My God. I brought in a good friend of mine who also worked on other projects with me, Nik Roos, and I explained to him that I wanted to take this track into a whole different genre. I thought, okay, what can we do with it? I made a sketch on my Ableton, sent it to him and said, “Okay, this is what I really liked and how it should sound”. But, of course, I asked him to bring in his own flavour and his own exceptional technical work for it to really glue together. That was really nice. It turned out well.

Yeah, absolutely.

It was really special that day and it was special for multiple reasons. I also think that it has to do with the fact that I was highly pregnant during the shoot, I was already eight months. There were so many different stories coming from the women on the shoot day. There was a mother and a daughter and during one scene, she asked me if I wanted to pause because they got really emotional. Then, we spoke to them and we found out that the mother had just been diagnosed with cancer a few months ago, that’s why the shoot day was a bit heavy for her. Her daughter was so proud of her. There were a lot of trans girls involved and they had their own really special stories. So, it was a really nice day full of wonderful women and of course all close to my own culture either they were born in Turkey, Iran or Iraq so it almost felt like a big family day.

Yes.

I think that being pregnant and then creating music is such a different experience and every time you sing you’re really aware of the fact that your baby hears your voice because your voice is the thing that they hear the most when you’re in the stomach. So, yeah, it’s really different.

Exactly! (laughs).