Sabiyha – PRESHOW RITUALS

In this Preshow Rituals segment, the singer-songwriter, Sabiyha, shares what she does before every show. You can check out her rituals, after the break.

Preparing yourself for a gig is a bit of a process, and for my last one, it was pretty manic. I have my usual pre-gig habits which I’ll take about later, but for now, I’ll divulge into the process that leads up to my EP launch show as a good example of pre-show prep.

So the first thing was to sort out merchandising. My mum, bless her, came up with the brilliant idea of giving away little bottles of homemade pepper sauce to anyone who attended. We’re Guyanese and pepper sauce in my family is considered less of a condiment and more of a food group. Whilst the idea was amazing, putting it into practice proved to be a literal pain. It was myself, my mum, my aunt, my grandma and my cousin blending, chopping and attempting not to touch our eyes in case we blinded ourselves.

Once we had bottled up the sauce and finished preparing all the decorations, it was time to head off to soundcheck. On my way to soundcheck, I always listen to music that’s completely different from my own. I have a playlist of incredible female hip hop and r&b artists like, Lil Simz, Cardi B, Stefflon Don, Missy Elliot, SZA etc…all strong women that have killed in the industry. This always gets me hyped, and I needed that more than ever for this launch. Once I’m at soundcheck, I always drown myself in copious amounts of honey and lemon and consequently always feel like a knob asking for “lemon water” whilst carrying around my own special honey because I’m extra like that.

After the soundcheck, I usually head to the place with the best lighting to transform myself into my equivalent of Sasha Fierce. For this show, and most, it was a questionably lit bathroom coupled with an equally questionable smell that permeated the air. Trying to achieve the perfect winged line accompanied by a chorus of flushing toilets is always a glamorous affair. Once my face is beat it’s off to the bar for a gin and tonic and then the green room for a warm up. In this case, it was an eight-piece band; we harmonized, we did a weird dance to loosen up and then we finished with the team bonding movie trope of putting our hands in the middle then shouting something like ‘go team!’. It was definitely cheesy, but we loved it really.

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