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Art by Nyomi

NYOMI KHAN

Parallel to dealing with working within the establishment and through the journey of whistleblowing dealing with paranoia, depression and anxiety, fuelled the desire the express through art and music.

During my suspension from work and my workings with Al Jazeera, faith was slowly being restored in being able to speak truth with conviction – that there was still another way. To deal with the anxieties of speaking boldly in front of powerful people, I expressed through painting and often freestyled rap verses – tools I used in school to combat the difficulties I faced in life.

THE RELEASE

It gave me the release from the restraint needed to express the truth in a highly critical environment such as the Labour Party. The past year awaiting the release of the the documentary, I lived a life shrouded with secrecy and paranoia – it was a phone call from a fond friend Ahmed, encouraging me to record the tracks which led me to meeting the Palestinian-Jordanian rapper Maddeh-1. After years of feeling undermined, there was a stranger who believed in my truth and we recorded my first track. Knowing his family history and many others I met in Jordan, reignited my desire to visit Palestine, where I spent my summer prior to the release and concluded the ‘Free Labour’ EP with Palestinian producer Smokaholic – to unlearn everything I was forced to believe by the Party’s machine and the lobbies working within it, and most importantly to remind myself that the levels of anxiety, paranoia or personal sacrifice I may face, pails in comparison to the suffering and suffocation faced by the policies supported by our British government and our opposition.

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