Natasha Khan (born 25 October 1979), better known by her stage name Bat for Lashes, is an English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She has released three studio albums, Fur and Gold (2006), Two Suns (2009) and The Haunted Man (2012), and received Mercury Prize nominations for Fur and Gold and Two Suns.
Khan was born into a Muslim family in London on 25 October 1979[1] to a Pakistani father and an English mother. The family lived inWembley and then moved to Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire.
She is the daughter of Pakistani squash player Rehmat Khan, step-daughter of singer Salma Agha, step-sister of actress Sashaa Agha (born as "Zara Khan"). She is the niece of World Open winner Jahangir Khan and Torsam Khan, and paternal grand-daughter ofNasrullah Khan, a squash player.[2] Khan attended many of the squash matches, which she felt inspired her creativity: "The roar of the crowd is intense; it is ceremonial, ritualistic, I feel like the banner got passed to me but I carried it on in a creative way. It is a similar thing, the need to thrive on heightened communal experience." After her father left the family, Khan, aged 11, taught herself to play the piano, which became "a channel to express things, to get them out".[2]
As a teenager in school, Khan was a victim of racism. She said other children "totally ripped me to shreds. They called me a fucking Pakistani. I didn't tell my mum that much because I was embarrassed but I remember being mortified. I just wanted to disappear. I just wanted to tell them that Pakistan is a land of purity." She became a school truant and was eventually suspended for bad behavior.[2] After completing her GCSEs and A-Levels, Khan took a job in a card-packing factory where she would work while listening to songs she had made. She said: "My internal imaginary life was really fruitful at that time. I remember packing cards and just listening to songs that I had made the night before on my mini-disc player. All day long just listening and dreaming, while counting the cards to be packed; 'One-two-three… four-five-six-seven-eight-nine… 10-11-12.'"
With money saved from the job, she embarked on a three-month road trip through America and Mexico.[2] After returning to the UK, Khan settled in Brighton to study music and visual arts at the University of Brighton,[2][3][4] where she produced sound installations, animations, and performances influenced by artists including Steve Reich and Susan Hiller.[citation needed] After finishing her degree, Khan worked as a nursery school teacher and began writing the material for her first album
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