We chatted to pop sensation SHAB about her luscious new single, ‘LIPSTICK,’ paying homage to ’80s pop and exploring how femininity and empowerment go hand in hand.
LIPSTICK feels like the perfect pop anthem to kick off the summer. Did you have sun-soaked parties and dreamy dancefloors in mind when creating it?
When we went into the studio to compose ‘Lipstick’, we really didn’t have much more in mind than creating a summertime track with an ‘80s pop vibe. I have always loved those types of summer songs from my youth – like ‘Cruisin’’, by Smokey Robinson, or ‘Cruel Summer’, by Bananarama, or even, ‘Malibu’, by Miley Cyrus — and wanted to create something that had those echoes.
When we had figured the melody for the first verse, the chorus kinda fell into line after that – and I definitely wanted a sing-along segment for my girls, with “Champagne on ice” proving a great lead-in. And when we were done with that first day of production, we all knew that we had something potentially special.
Taken from your acclaimed album, ‘One Suitcase’, the track embraces femininity and being unapologetically yourself. How does that message reflect where you are right now in terms of confidence and self-assurance?
I am more confident, self-assured and comfortable in my own skin than at any other time of my life. It took me a few years, but I was finally able to rid my mindset of the backward concepts of womanhood as a second-class citizen that filled my head during my youth – and my mindset is fully transformed to that of female empowerment, independence and equality
Can you walk us through the creative process behind the track? Did it start with a melody, a rhythm, or a lyrical idea?
The song started with the beats and melody for the first verse — which always comes pretty easily with my frequent songwriting partners Eric Zayne & Naz Tokio – and then we decided to start fooling around with some lyrics. Eric & Naz ordered me into the vocal booth and told me to start freestyling some lyrics: and the first words that literally came out of my mouth were, “Take a part of me | If you really want it, Boy | Want it bad for me | You’re always wanting more”.
And that’s how the song came together. Unfortunately, you will only hear that verse on the album version as the song as we had to abbreviate the track for a radio edit – and the second part of the first verse on the album version of LIPSTICK was the easiest potion to sacrifice!
The song has an instantly feel-good energy, echoing the confidence boost many of us get from swiping on our favourite lipstick. Do you have a go-to shade that’s always in your bag and never fails to lift your spirits?
I always learn towards red shades – probably my favorite is British Red, Shade 350 from L’Oreal.
While we love the song’s infectious chorus, the video is just as captivating. What was the inspiration behind the visual concept?
Our team was agreed with my Creative co-Directors Richy Jackson & Eli Sokhn that we should find a theme for the official music video that was fairly simplistic, a bit campy and true to the ’80s vibe of the music track. We quickly resolved a treatment from those conversations that echoed the same sensibility in audio track.
The styling is stunning: think 80s Hollywood, big beehives, and of course, bold red lipstick. How did the visual aesthetic and fashion choices come together?
We wanted to bring viewers of the video back to the 1980s – an old BMW 300 series convertible, big hair, SuperGlam styling. We wanted my fans to hark back to a more carefree time with some fond nostalgia in order to echo the vibe of the audio track. And that’s my car’s actual license plate on the convertible!
You recently completed a successful radio tour across the U.S. to celebrateOne Suitcase. What was it like performing your songs in such intimate settings and sharing the album’s empowering message firsthand?
The nationwide radio & TV promotional tour was both one of the most gratifying but also most grueling undertakings that I so far done in my career. We were often hitting three or four different venues in a day, sometimes three different cities in a day. We spent probably close to eighty hours in a plane and as many in rentals cars to get to our commitments and never spent two nights in the same hotel over eight weeks. But it allowed us to meet with some of the senior-most radio programmers in America, most of whom were unaware of my work simple due to the fact that we’d never done much radio promotional work.
And let me tell you: it is far more nerve-racking to perform acoustically on an impromptu basis in front of two dozen members of a corporate radio programming staff on an in-studio performance stage than it is to do a produced set for 20,000 people at The O2! I mean, it wasn’t until I had performed the album’s title track, ONE SUITCASE, roughly a half dozen times that I could get through the song without tearing up!
But I loved the tour. Maybe as much as anything, performing these songs on that tour and in those settings ingrained them into my soul.
What’s next after ‘Lipstick’? Are you already working on new music?
Of course I am already working on new music!
Probably next up for the note of your viewers will be the summertime release of the official music video for DANCE TIL YOU’RE FREE. Something that my listeners may not understand is that DANCE TIL YOU’RE FREE was always intended as a liberation song – and you’ll see that the music video drives home that point, as it’s a total Eff You addressed to the fundamentalist Gangster Regime in Tehran.
By late summer, I will also probably be releasing an EP of four electronic dance songs that were composed working together during this past April with Valentijn Hoogwarf, who is the Dutch half of the incredible EDM duo of Avalan Rokston.
We’re hoping for some appropriate touring opportunities during the latter half of 2025 – and I am already five songs into my next album, which should be released no later than mid-2026.
