Rukaiyah Qazi is an artist development and marketing consultant, singer-songwriter and musician in the midst of a quest for artistic freedom.
She has worked with record labels, distribution and management companies over the past few years, managing projects for AJ Tracey, Moses Sumney, Khruangbin, Sega Bodega, Stella Donnelly and more. Taking the leap into freelance work in Oct 2021, Rukaiyah is building an eclectic and bold roster including Alice Glass, Ny Oh, Dorian Electra, Sega Bodega, and Conducta, and is also composing her debut album as part of band Qazi & Qazi.
I’m usually sworn to secrecy on what I'm currently working on, but I will say that it’d be wise to keep an eye out for some incredible music and visual work from Alice Glass and Jianbo in the coming months…
Our recent chat with Rukaiyah discusses her favourite campaigns and talks about the overlaps between visual creativity and music.
I'M LOVING
Creatively at the moment, I’m loving Dilara Findikoglu.
One of my favourite emerging designers, who for a while, has not only created a brilliant world around her beautiful clothing across socials, press and across campaigns and seasons, but has also begun to experiment in the NFT space.
Love to see an emerging fashion house stay ahead of the curve and be entrepreneurial in the tech space. Inspiring!
FAVOURITE VIDEO
My all-time favourite classic music video is Madonna's Like A Prayer.
This video has been a constant inspiration in so many aspects of my life and I always come back to it. Iconic.
My all-time favourite new music video is serpentwithfeet's bless ur heart.
Serpents performance in this is as heartwarming as the song itself. Add out-of-this-world gorgeous VFX and historic/religious interior design - perfection.
A close second would have to be Lana Del Rey's Video Games.
The simplicity and intimacy of this is genius. A perfect opening statement for an artist.
BEST ARTWORK
I’ve always loved the original cover art for We Are the Night by the chemical brothers.
Not my favourite album but the cover - mystical, deeply human and mechanical all at once - gets me every time.
It reminds me of calendrical hand diagrams from Hebrew and medieval Christian prayer books and Islamic prayer practices that I’ve witnessed being passed down through my family.
RECENT CAMPAIGN
The most recent campaign I’ve enjoyed working on has been Sega Bodega’s campaign for his new album Romeo.
As well as leading marketing and project management for the project, I’ve been involved in video commissioning. It has been so inspiring to work with an artist who has such a strong vision - both musically and aesthetically - at what I think is the most confident and realised point of his career to date.
Check out I Need Nothing From You, directed by Actual Objects:
BRAND COLLAB
The most recent brand collab I loved facilitating was McSpicy (McDonalds) and AJ Tracey for his Summertime Shootout music video.
Not your usual product placement - we had a massive retro McDonalds airstream van parked outside an essex mansion to cater the music video’s ‘cookout’, AJ was the first person in the UK to try the new McSpicy burger, and the collab tied in beautifully with our 90s Michael Jordan inspired album campaign.
One I haven’t worked on that I’ve loved is byredo and Diet Paratha for the launch of new scent Mumbai Noise.
Diet Paratha commissioned some incredible artists from across the south asian diaspora to create custom art on bottles of perfume and the results were brilliant.
CREATIVE VIDEO
For me the most creative and original music video of the past year is Dorian Electra's F The World.
Dorian and Weston Allen are a creative dream team. I honestly had no idea what this video was going to look like until the day it dropped so I got to experience it as a fan (rather than having a sneak preview ahead of release as team members usually would) and honestly I’m so glad it happened that way.
It shocked the life out of me - a complete curveball for dorian aesthetically and thematically yet so unmistakably DORIAN. Extreme, mildly unsettling, bold, bright and game-changing all in just over 2 mins.
