Nina Nesbitt

The lotus flower is known for its sheer grace, rising up from the mud of its surrounding, only to bloom and radiate beauty on its own. It is a symbol for overcoming adversity, a token to represent the gratification in facing life’s trials and tribulations, and an analogy wrapped up dearly in the Scottish singer/songwriter Nina Nesbitt who is on the verge of blossoming in her own right as an artist.

Though Nesbitt was thrust into the pop music industry at just 17 following a chance discovery from Ed Sheeran that helped the recording artist’s infectious bedroom-penned songs see the light of the U.K. charts, her forthcoming record is an effort to lay her soul bare– a project deduced from personal growth and self-discovery that is eager to be shared with the world.

Nesbitt explained that while she has released a number of EPs and worked with other artists in the studio since her 2014 full-length debut Peroxide, for much of last year she suffered from depression before she heard the music inside herself that became her upcoming album and inspired her to release new solo work. “I pretty much sat in my bedroom with the curtains shut for about four months,” she said. “I’ve never experienced anything like it. Luckily, I had really supportive people around me that encouraged me to get back to music, and then I actually became the happiest and most creative I’ve been for a while because I was so determined to get out of the horrible place I was in.”

With support behind her and her personal creative drive, Nesbitt had found the lyrics that she needed to sing, the song that she felt compelled to write, or her recent lead single “The Moments I’m Missing.” Nesbitt said as she was writing for other artists,

"I wanted to be the one singing the songs at the end of the day, but I knew if I were to do that, the song had to come from me and my life."

Eventually, though, this became the haunting, deeply autobiography ballad she created– a divergence in her career to embrace a minimalistic pop sound wholly immersed in the complex, multifaceted artist she has proven to be. She said, “I think I was just trying to figure out who I was and where my strengths were [with my debut], and I think the record reflects that. So, in some ways, it’s very true to who I was at the time. But this new record is a lot more cohesive and literally makes me want to cry every time I hear it because it’s the closest thing to having some sort of child. I personally just [wanted] to make the record version of me,” she said.

68“Maybe sounds quite self indulgent, but I’ve grown up loving those types of artists, so it would always bother me if I never did it myself. I want people to have the same experience listening to mine as I did with others– talking about things people maybe think but never say.”

With songs like “The Moments I’m Missing,” Nesbitt’s latest release “The Best You Had,” and surely her entire record, this individually entrenched honesty was a writing style she sought to pursue. Rather than writing a song any melodic voice could sing, these songs were meant to be hers. They were songs that became gifts to herself and with time, to the world. “I have two different types of writing. Writing the best song with the best melodies, the catchiest hooks, a relatable lyric– something that could be sung by anyone,” she said, pointing to tracks like her hit “Chewing Gum.”

“Then I have writing what I want to say and exactly how I feel… [writing a catchy song doesn’t] give the listener an incentive to invest in the artist. It’s just a great sing along song. The records that I like are not of a certain genre, they’re just honest and I feel connected to the artist. I want to know everything about them. I love the stories.” Because Nesbitt took time to invest in herself and her work, the recording artist glistens on her new music– her voice like a lustrous daydream, lovingly inviting the listener into her narrative of the now.

Nesbitt is writing for the strong girl she has grown to love, one who is constantly discovering exactly who she is, pursuing a career fearlessly and independently in a male-dominated field, and falling in and out of love as she learns to love herself and the moments she comes by. Though Nesbitt faced a whirlwind of success upon the tail end of her teenhood, she said she has grown immensely as an individual and artist as the years pass by, even if at first she “felt like she knew it all” before her career even really began.

Holding onto the starry-eyed emerging artist from Edinburgh she once was and looking at tomorrow, she said, “It’s hard to be the same person as you were when you were 16. It’s good to keep looking forward and finding a new person within you as you grow. It’s the same for anyone, change is a natural thing. I guess reflecting and looking back has made me realize that I’m actually really proud of what I’ve achieved so far, but I still have a lot more things that I want to cross off my list,” she said.

With this and the winding path life has paved for Nesbitt in mind, one can see that though she may have already made her way to the surface of the pool, coming up through the mud, she is about to blossom. A lotus flower flourishing, petal by petal, as Nesbitt shares further talent and vulnerability, song by song. A phoenix rising from the ashes, or even simply a lotus mystically making its way through the muck.

Written by Sadie Bell | Photography by Hanifah Mohammad