Iman Fandi, Keyana And Jean Seizure Open Up On Creating Work With Art And Soul

When we talk about artists, we tend to talk about why they do what they do as a calling. Our three cover stars this month might not have started out knowing that music was theirs, or even called it that, but the pull was always there. Jean Seizure’s parents were both Mandopop singers in the ’70s; Keyana and Iman Fandi were dancers in their childhoods. Their homes were filled with music, and their families’ tastes ranged wide. While the seeds were planted early on, learning how to nurture them took some time.

Iman, who had always been writing songs, made a birthday resolution when she was turning 20 to just go into a recording studio and lay down a track. That turned into her debut single, "Timeframe", and led to Iman, now 23, being signed by Universal Music Singapore. Keyana, 19, has always harboured musical ambitions but it took being a model to gain enough confidence to pursue her dreams. Today, she has a handful of singles like “Shelter from the Rain” and “Scorpio” under her belt and an EP slated for release later this year. Jean started out doing covers and posting them onto their YouTube channel, while also being part of an acapella group; they finally took the plunge and released original music in 2018. Now, one often sees the 32-year-old’s tracks such as “Tell Me”, “Chemistry”, and “Do You Wanna” spotlit on global Spotify playlists such as Spotify Radar, Spotify Glow and Spotify Equal.

Related article: Hear & Now: Iman Fandi, Keyana And Jean Seizure Front Our June 2023 Issue

In a reflection of Singapore’s growing musical landscape, their work is sonically distinctive. Keyana is all smooth, velvety R&B; Iman’s brand of R&B-inflected pop is slicker, with a smattering of dancehall influences; while Jean gravitates towards moody, minimal folk pop, though recent tracks have seen them experimenting with more synth pop sounds. What the three women have in common is that everything they put out stems from a deeply personal space. “I’m leaving behind my teenage years. And it’s kind of a reflection on that—the things that pained me the most, and not just the romance, but love and loss in general,” says Keyana of her upcoming EP. “It’s like putting out your diary in real life—it’s scary to have people go through it. But I’m doing it for my future self, to look back on,” she elaborates.

Iman takes a similar approach. “Songwriting is like a journal for me. I find it easier to write about sad stuff because I usually don’t share much during the times I’m down. So writing is a way of getting through it,” she says. The searing honesty in Jean’s music too is a product of them confronting their innermost feelings through song. “Growing up, I was not able to be open and honest about how I felt and I put all of that into my music. In our daily lives, there are times where we experience certain things and we just deny them. But with music, I get to be completely honest. And the fact that people resonate with it is an encouragement for me to be authentic to myself,” they explain.

Related article: Fashioning The Future: Multi-Faceted Singer-Songwriter Jean Seizure Is Breaking Barriers And Forging Firsts

Authenticity is a word that comes up multiple times in conversation with all three. Expressing their truest selves is not something they want, but need—that need to have their voices heard and their stories told is at the heart of their work. Jean says, “It was something that has been on my mind since I started putting out music. For my first song, I didn’t change the pronouns at all. But I was able to make the video through crowdfunding exactly because I didn’t change anything about what I was saying. In that sense, I’ve drawn strength from the fact that there is a need for people like me out here in Singapore.” Keyana, who is of Ghanaian-Singaporean Chinese descent, echoes the same sentiment about representation, saying, “Everyone needs people whom you can look up to and take inspiration from as a child, and I think I lacked a lot of that here. I’m not trying to speak for everybody, but a big part of what want to do is to show that there are people like me.” For Iman, who grew up somewhat in the public eye, she says, “It’s more personal. My music is about showing the different sides of me that people have never really seen or heard.”

Baring your soul in your work and then sharing that work with the world is not without its challenges, as is often the case when one chooses to be vulnerable. For all intents and purposes, Iman is someone that, in our current cultural climate, would be deemed a “nepo baby”—her father is national football hero Fandi Ahmad; her mother is former top model Wendy Jacobs. “We don’t have a choice in the family that we’re born into. I am lucky that my parents are always supportive. Though I understand that they’ve had their own successful careers, I try to prove to myself and my family that I am able to do things on my own as well. With both modelling and music, I never told them about it until I actually did it. People will always have their own opinions and they might link things back to my family. All I can do is to be myself and to do the things I want to do,” she says.

Related article: Beauty At Every Age: Wendy Jacobs And Iman Fandi

Things can get even more fraught when you’re a minority. Keyana is aware that she doesn’t look like your average Singaporean. “I definitely think I have been perceived differently. But I don’t know if I can speak on whether being different is advantageous or not—like anything else, I think there are two sides to it. I’m just navigating it the way I know and learning to embrace it. On that front, I’m definitely further ahead than I was years ago,” she says. Understandably, she isn’t keen to press the issue on the record, preferring instead to work it out through private conversations with her support network. Jean is more vocal about their difficulties navigating a heteronormative industry. “There are times where I feel like it’s a struggle because it’s hard for me to be recognised in the mainstream media. But other things, like being on a Spotify billboard in Times Square, or more recently, being the first and only Asian on Spotify Glow—these gave me the courage to keep going,” they say.

Focusing on the work is one sure way to cut through all the noise. Jean says, “In the past, I had more energy [to engage with haters]. Now I find it more productive to protect my energy. These are people whom, even if you engage, you might not get through to. So now, I just delete or block them for my peace of mind, and concentrate on the most important things.” For Iman, it’s coming to the realisation that “the only people I should worry about are myself and the ones around me. I’m at that stage where I’ve accepted that people will always have their own opinions. I cannot force people to like me, all I can do is to like myself and what I do and put out into the world.”

And what they want to put out into the world is so much more than just music—its purpose, be it connecting with people or inspiring them. Iman says, “I want my stories to take you on a rollercoaster—to make you feel all the different emotions; to make you dance, or smile, or cry. I also want to keep experimenting so I can create a sound that is me.” Keyana adds, “I’m extremely ambitious. I have huge dreams. I hope I get to dip my toes in all the different things I want to do. And I want to be original while I’m at it, so that at the end of the day, people will say, ‘Hey, that’s Keyana, you know? She did this.’ I want to keep surprising people.” Jean shares a story that has become something of a guiding light for her. “I was playing a gig once and this person came up to me and told me that listening to my music really helped them. They were in the same church as I was and there was a moment of connection where we both wanted to cry because we knew how hard it was. That is something I will always remember. Okay, you can send me hate, throw s*** on me, but even if just one person comes up to me and says, ‘Hey, what you’re doing changed my life’, that makes everything else just melt away.”

Photographer and film director: Shawn Paul Tan
Creative director and stylist: Windy Aulia
Makeup: (On Iman Fandi) Kat Zhang/The Suburbs Studio, (On Keyana and Jean Seizure) Manisa Tan
Hair: Manisa Tan, Karol Soh
Digital content manager & producer: Navin Pillay
Director of Photography: Christopher Leong
Photographer’s assistants: Melvin Leong, Alfred Phang
Stylist’s assistants: Brandon Chia, Naysa Pradhan, Zoe Tauro

BAZAAR'S JUNE 2023 PLAYLIST

What are our June 2023 cover stars listening to this summer? Have a listen.

Jean Seizure: "Driving in the City," by Brandon Mig
"I love how this is a song about a fundamentally crappy situation, but they made it sound breezy (like with life, it is what it is) and I love the topline. Definitely a song that I wish I wrote."
"Not Angry," by Chris James
"This song is about coming to terms with anger towards someone and also letting go of grudges. Something that I admire and I love how the arrangement brings about a sense of being at peace and wanting to be a better person."
"Summer Tights," by DPR LIVE
"The DPR team is a dream. It's suave and fun and I just can't help but vibe to it :)"

Keyana: "On My Mama," by Victoria Monet
"The perfect conjunction of old and new. My current favourite song to get ready to."
"Day Dream," by Destin Conrad
"The groove on this track… Never fails to put me in the best mood."
"Colder in June," by CARI
"Pure gold of a track. I loved her writing, the textures on it take you to a gorgeous place."