“There are reporters here, aren’t there?” says Arooj Aftab, mimicking a diva fit. “Is there nowhere I can go and sing in public in peace?” She sighs imperiously. “But do it. Do it. Make me look cool.”
Making the Pakistani-American singer and composer look cool is perhaps the easiest assignment in journalism. With her flamboyant black leather coat, heavy shades and crackling wit, Aftab’s star power is almost too large for this tiny room. Omeara is an old railway arch near London Bridge with fashionably mottled walls and suboptimal sightlines. She explains that usually her band headlines the Barbican, “like douchebags”, and this is by far the smallest venue she has ever played in London. As it grows uncomfortably hot, she sheds her coat but then dons a leather jacket, which is scarcely less impractical. She is prepared to suffer for cool.
