The Nanseera Interview: Bluebird Golden Pick Winner's Heart Wrangling Song, "Mobile"

Today on AmericanaMusic.com we’re excited to welcome up-and-coming Nashville sensation Nanseera. Born in London, Nanseera grew up in Uganda and Ethiopia before moving to the US for high school and college. She’s a singer-songwriter with both depth and warmth to her style that draws you in like a moth. April 2026 Bluebird Golden Pick Winner, we are so excited to welcome Nanseera to our show. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to the Americana Music.com podcast with your host, Sarah Popejoy.

SPEAKER_05 0:16

Today on American Music.com, we're excited to welcome Up and Coming Nashville Sensation, April 2026 Bluebird Golden Pick Winner, Nan Sarah. She's a singer-songwriter with both depth and warmth to her style that draws you in like a moth. We are so excited to welcome Nan Sarah to our show. Welcome, Nan Sarah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Wow, that was such a glowing introduction.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I love it. Awesome.

SPEAKER_05 0:42

You were born in London, grew up in Uganda and Ethiopia before moving to the US for high school and college. I like finding out where people are from on this show because you can learn not only about a little bit about the place they grew up, but also the individual's perception of where they grew up. Yeah, wow, that's so true. Can you talk about what it was like growing up in Uganda and Ethiopia? Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

My dad is American and my mom is Ugandan. I have a lot of family in Uganda, so Uganda was in a way a home country for me. I say that in quotes. It was very interesting growing up in Uganda and being a mixed-race family, there's not very many mixed families or mixed people, and so it makes for an interesting experience interacting with people in the day-to-day. I had a very comfortable and very international upbringing, which is really cool. And we got to travel a lot and we got to see a lot of just honestly different people and different ways of living life. And I feel like that has expanded my perspective so much and really has seeped into me. And I think hopefully has made me a more empathetic person. But I really did like the changes and getting to see how so many people approach life and approach each other. And I think there's a lot that we can learn across different cultures. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And moving to Ethiopia, that was a big move for me. I was about 10. We had been like one time to visit before moving. And it's such a completely different culture than Uganda and different food and music and dance and everything's just very, very different. It was really enriching and so amazing to sort of become part of that. And at the same time, in moving there, there was a large identity shift that happened for me where I was no longer this like Ugandan and American girl, like just living in Uganda. I was suddenly like home was home, but not home. And places that I went felt familiar, but I lost a sense of belonging that I think I once had. And in a way that was saddening, but also in a way it was freeing. Like I think now I'm able to go many places, and I have the knowledge that I can go and live in a place that I don't belong to or I'm not part of, and I can still, you know, form bonds and learn and enjoy life and see how people live and interact. That was a big move. It was a cool way to grow up, and it's pretty rare. It's helped you learn to adapt. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Adaptability is like number top skill. I should put that first in my resume. Before you look at anything else, just check this one out.

SPEAKER_05 3:06

Where did you move to when you first moved to the United States?

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Yes. I made the, in retrospect, not so wise decision of going to boarding school. So I went to a boarding school in Boston, Massachusetts, had a rough go of it. And then my family for my dad's work moved to Atlanta, Georgia. So I moved back in with them. And I went to a school that ended up being just the perfect fit for me. And it was really great. And um, yeah, and then went to college in Florida. So I've lived in four different states now at this point in the US. So there's also been moving within the country. So Massachusetts and Georgia and Florida and now Tennessee.

SPEAKER_05 3:42

And talk about different cultures between all four of those. I mean, I know it's American, but Boston is its own thing.

SPEAKER_03 3:51

Boston to Atlanta, completely different worlds. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_05 3:54

Yes. Yeah, yeah. That's wild.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

It is wild. Yeah. Are you where are you?

SPEAKER_05 4:00

Oh, I'm in Tulsa area. Okay, cool. Yeah, it's a good time to move back. But I did live in Nashville for 10 years in Texas. So you you know the scenes. Well, yeah, I know the scenes, even though mine was not as great as yours, probably in the culture changes, but you know, like even from Oklahoma to Nashville. Yeah. Huge. I mean, I thought we were southern, right?

SPEAKER_04 4:21

Oklahoma. We are not southern.

unknown 4:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 4:25

At all.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

Who were some of your musical influences growing up? Well, when I was very little, my favorite artist was a Ugandan pop star, Juliana Canyomzi, and she's just the best. She's got this like very kind of high mixy voice and all these little bops. And so I was out there, I was like three, four, just bopping out to Juliana. My parents also listened to a variety of music, and I loved Tracy Chapman a lot growing up and Cheryl Crow and the chicks. It's also funny because I was growing up in East Africa, and so I had no idea that the chicks had been cancelled. That was information that I learned later, and I was so shocked, and I was like, wow, that's wild. Let me say I could do a whole show on that.

SPEAKER_05 5:07

You could probably do a whole show.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

We did listen to Zap Mama a lot and some Johnny Cash as well and Lily Allen. And it was a cool mix of people. And then, you know, the kind of just music of wherever we were. Like in Ethiopia, we were also listening to a lot of amazing Ethiopian music and like Asteraweke and Teddy Afro. And it's nice to have those different influences. And it's funny now appreciating how music is around us and we don't really even think about it. I think it's so cool when you're in a different place and you're suddenly around different music, and then you have to kind of intentionally maybe seek out music that used to just for a lot of us music, music has a specific place that we associate it with, which I think is is awesome, beautiful.

SPEAKER_05 5:51

Oh yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. Appalachian music. Yes, bluegrass in Kentucky.

SPEAKER_03 5:56

Oh my god, I love bluegrass. So good. So good. Oh my gosh, that reminds me of Lucinda Williams. Like anytime I'm on the road, I'm like always thinking about Lucinda Williams. Car Wheels. The road trip hasn't started until you've got car wheels and a gravel road going.

SPEAKER_05 6:09

Oh yes, for sure, for sure. And when did you move to Nashville at what point?

SPEAKER_03 6:14

I moved to Nashville about a year and a half ago. I'm a new kid on the block. I graduated from the Frost School of Music in down in Florida in 2023. And then I moved back home and I was like traveling a bit. I spent some time back in Uganda as well and came back and was just kind of like, what the heck just happened to me for the past four years? And then a lot of my friends had moved to you know the classic like music school meccas, like people moved to LA or Nashville or New York. That's kind of the typical move. Yeah. A lot of my friends had moved to Nashville. And I had always been interested in Nashville because the craft of song is really important here. And it's something that people listen for and value. And I think that's really special. I listen for that and value that too. So I was like, ooh, let's give it a try. So here I am giving it a try.

SPEAKER_05 6:58

Oh yeah, it's definitely a songwriter's city for sure. Mm-hmm. Doing well so far. Were there things that have surprised you about Nashville? Good and bad. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Yes. I think I had maybe underestimated the social ties that you sometimes need just to know that certain things are happening in certain places. Like I think I thought there would be maybe more centralized, and I think there are like centralized jams or writers' rounds and this or that. It's taken me a little bit more trial and error than I anticipated to like find sort of smaller pockets of the kind of music that I'm not just that I make, but the kind of music that I want to learn more about and see people making. I'm someone who I like to just sort of be getting better at my craft, and I think one of the ways of doing that is just like really seeing how other people are doing it. Oh yeah. It's taken me longer than I anticipated to like find spots that I like to go or like places where I like to hear people play music or make music or whatever. But I think I'm finally finding some spots that feel very good. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_05 7:57

Can you uh tell us some of those spots you like to go?

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Uh Bobby's Idol Hour is was recently introduced to me. It's just a small venue, but there's a lot of cool Americana stuff going down in there. And it's a small venue, it's very intimate. It's on Music Row, which is kind of feels random. It doesn't have the corporate vibe to it at all. And yeah, I saw Chloe Kimes play there recently, and I was just like, oh, this is this is a cool spot to be. And I really like that. And then just a couple of jams that I found with friends or just writers, other writers that I like to hang with or or talk to. So cool.

SPEAKER_05 8:30

Yeah, I think that's one thing too about you know, when you go, you learn about all the cool little spots.

SPEAKER_03 8:34

And again, it's a social thing of like I wouldn't have known if a friend of mine wasn't like, hey, like I saw that so-and-so's playing tonight, and like if you want to come, I was like, Oh, yes, I want to come. You gotta be seeking it out or knowing people who are a little more on the pulse.

SPEAKER_05 8:47

Yeah, and now that I think about it, all the cool little venues that I I used to go to were usually through friends.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

Yeah, exactly. So I'm like, well, Nancera, you you don't have to be like raw dog in this, like you really can just ask a friend.

unknown 9:02

You know?

SPEAKER_03 9:03

Like, I don't know why I was like trying to do this whole independent and I'm gonna find a place that I'm gonna be most comfortable. And it's like, okay, or you could ask your friend, like, hey, have you been to any cool jams lately? Or hey, like, what's a spot that you like to go to? You know, it's just kind of like Nancera, other other people already know this stuff. Like, you just you don't have to like scour, like, you know, Google or Reddit or whatever. Like, just ask the people you already know.

SPEAKER_05 9:27

You were the April 2026 Bluebird Golden Pick winner, which is a very competitive competition for singer-songwriters, for those who don't know. The song you entered is called Mobile. Yes. And I want to preface talking about this song by saying that there are songs that when you hear as a listener, as a songwriter, that have a profound impact on you and change the way you think. And songs like I remember when I first heard Stones in the Road by Mary Chapin Carpenter or Younger Now by Bob Dylan, Mobile just really hit me. Can you set up a little bit about what the song Mobile is about?

SPEAKER_03 10:07

Yeah, definitely. Well, first of all, I'm also just very glad that it really moved you. That's what I hope for for this song, always. I am mixed race. My mom is black, she's Ugandan, my dad is white, he's from Maryland. On my dad's side of the family, we have ancestors who were enslavers in Alabama. A few years ago, my dad took my brothers and I down to Mobile, Alabama. We have extended family that live there still, and genealogy and keeping track of our ancestors is something that's really, really important. So on my paternal grandmother's side of the family, I was like very, very into this. And so we got to go and learn about our ancestors who were enslavers down there, and not even just about that, but also just about like who they were and how they operated, and to go actually see for ourselves like the places that they would have been going to and the plantation house that they had and the house that they lived on and the street that it was on. And it's funny because posting it online, there's been some sort of anger of like, why did your dad take you there? And like that would be so like horrible. And I don't think he took us there to like necessarily have fun, you know. I think it was more like this is your history, and you have the privilege of being able to see it for yourself. You know, I'm gonna give you that if I can, you yourself interacting with that history and what remains of it today. So that's a much more long-winded introduction than I usually do. Yeah, so this song is sort of about that experience of being mixed in someone who's considered black, you know, most of the places that I go in the United States. But then also within my American ancestry, my ancestors were never enslaved and were rather the enslavers. And so it's a very interesting experience to be walking through the world, being seen as black, being impacted by a very violent history that my ancestors were part of upholding and continuing, than, you know, sort of having to be on the negatively receiving end of that legacy.

SPEAKER_05 11:59

I think it was good that he showed you because there's something about history, and when it's your history, even more so, about going to the place where that history happened because it just makes it tactile. And it makes it real. It's not just, oh, I heard this story of whatever. It's like, oh, this happened. This is where it happened.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Mm-hmm. Exactly. Exactly. And then it also makes the history personal in a way because you are walking through it. You are walking over the land that they walked over, and you are seeing the places, and this is the tree where this happened, and this is the building where this happened, and yeah, walking into the building itself. It's not a book, it's not all, you know, like you said, it's not a line on a page, it's not a theory that someone is presenting to you. Yeah, that's that is so true. Would you sing the song for us? Yes, with pleasure. This is what happened in Mobile.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Hop in the car, we're on an adventure, driving all the way to Mobile. This is your cousin, and this is your hometown from many generations ago. Walk through the graveyard, me and my brothers are staring at stones in the ground. That's great grandma Sarah, slave owner from Selma. Can you feel her rolling around? Rode in my diary, I'll get my matches and gasoline. Oh, I have road in my diary, I'll burn it all till it's in the rain. They'll ask me, why did you burn down no bill? Can't you say there's something beautiful here? Why did you burn down nobody? Get off your high horse. You're not the victim here. Portraits on every wall. That's great grandma Sarah, slave owner from Selma. She holds her guitar just like you. I wrote in my diary, I'll get my mattress and gasoline. Oh, I wrote in my diary. I'll burn it all till it's never easy. They'll ask me, why did you burn down Moe? Can't you see there's something beautiful here? Why did you burn down Moe? Get off your high horse. You're not the victim here. Jesus the Savior is dying across from Highly Hungary. I saw a black woman and then a policeman. Her body was pulled to the ground. And it seems like nothing is changed in Mobile Except me and my brothers are in town. Rode in my diary, I'll get my matches and gasoline. Oh, I have a road in my diary. I'll burn it out till it's great.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

You ask me why didn't you burn down my pill? Can't you see there's something about why did you burn down the wheel?

SPEAKER_02 16:57

And get off your high horse. You're not the victim here.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

I always say I wrote that I it's like a few years ago. It's actually like a decade ago now that we went down to Mobile with my brothers. I was actually still in high school at that point. I went to a very, very cool high school and we had shorter semesters in January and May. And in May, one of our teachers was also a singer-songwriter, Anita Isola, very cool. And she ran a songwriting class. So we had three weeks to write a song, and then we would do like a showcase at the end. And I had been going through since my move to boarding school was just like really rough. I had been going through like a writer's block. And so I really hadn't been writing songs for a couple of years at that point. And so I felt very rusty, very rusty. And I think this experience though, it it haunted me in a way. And in a way, writing the song almost felt like an exorcism. It sounds so dramatic, but like it really, this spirit that was just it couldn't settle, like it was just very disturbing internally. Yeah. And I it needed to get out of me. But I also I think this the struggle of writing the song, when I talk about like the technicality of that, I wanted it to be as complex as it felt. I wanted to really capture exactly what I meant to say. And I think sometimes in writing that's so hard. Like we get close enough, and it's easy to be like, well, it's close enough, it fits on the melody. Let's keep going. And I totally do that a lot. You know, just kind of like, all right, this is this works and it's gonna go in and it's catchy and let's do it. But this was a song where I was like, no, no, no. I want to put both feet into this, and I want the depth of it to sit in the words. Earlier that year, in one of my courses, we studied The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. It's her debut novel. And Tony Morrison has this amazing way of using language and of really communicating the power dynamics that exist in our world with very simple language that's very image-based. You're in the place, but she's communicating to you the power dynamic so expertly with her language. And so that was such a great inspiration to me to be able to say, no, you can do it. You can put all of the disturbance and all of the complexity into this song.

SPEAKER_05 19:29

Can you talk a little bit about writing the song mobile? The song itself really tells the story, but I'd like to hear about writing that song. Was it hard like emotionally, or was it one of those that just came out?

SPEAKER_03 19:43

It was hard emotionally and also technically. Writing the verses was a little bit easier. The verses are more so this happened, that happened. There's a little tongue-in-cheek about Grandma Sarah like not being cool with us being black. Uh, okay, fine. It was getting to the chorus and getting to the acknowledgement of no, when you go to Mobile, you're an outsider still. Like, yes, this is your this is your ancestral homeland, and yes, you are deeply disturbed by some of the horrors that went down here. And you don't get to decide the fate of this place. You don't get to burn down Mobile. You don't get to just do that and think that you're doing the right thing. I don't have that power, and I don't really deserve that power, truthfully. Uh-huh, just because I'm the outsider, but because in many ways I have benefited from that history, from that ancestry. I cannot just ignore that component. Yeah, that was the challenge of this song was pulling in both components of I'm directly affected in my present by racism and by how the legacy of slavery has played out in the United States. And I'm also directly privileged by that history as well. And so having both of those live in the song and be able to be pulled out of the music is um, yeah, that was that was hard to do. Yeah. There was a deadline, and I think honestly that helped. It always does for songwriters. Always. I love the melody too. Thank you. Yeah. That actually came first because we got back from the trip. I was trying to write this song. I couldn't do it at that moment. I don't know if it just was too heavy then or if I just didn't have that time limit that I knew it would have to be done. But there's a bit of a rub there with the the three and the four. And I I thought that that felt haunting in the way that I felt haunted.

SPEAKER_05 21:20

I want to also talk about a couple more of your songs. Yes. The song Dance Like You, it's a fun song that was actually written in response to the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe versus Wade. Can you talk a little bit about that song? Oh, I would love to. I love that song.

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Roe v. Wade was overturned. Shortly after that, I went to get a coffee with a friend of mine, and she at the time in med school and being part of some research around women's health and getting women access to healthcare. So it was shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned. So it's just this major legislation, just like landslide regression. I was just so surprised. Struck by her talking about her research, and she was still doing it. And she's like, We're going forward with the paper, we're going forward with this. We need to keep going. And like, it's not on the national level, but it's on the local level, and we're gonna keep trying to figure out how we can get people access to this. And I just thought that was so inspiring. Went home from that coffee and I wrote the song. And it's funny because most of the song doesn't actually really directly refer to like women's healthcare at all. It ended up being more of a statement on capitalism and political oppression. And there's a little bit of Roby Wade in the last verse. I think it just more broadly speaks to people's resilience in the face of political oppression. And a lot of times, you know, we have to be honest about the the direction that our society is going and the direction that our legislation is going, and that it's sort of people are less and less protected, especially in that in the United States right now. A lot of places around the world, joyful resistance is something that resonates with me. I I hope that it gives people a sense of like grounded hope. It's a very powerful thing to move forward knowing that so many forces are moving against you or against your neighbor, choosing to say, Hey, I'm gonna keep showing up.

SPEAKER_05 23:02

I feel like for so long, my generation there wasn't a lot of fighting we had to do for our rights, like say 60s and women's liberation and all that stuff, you know, that went on before us. And we got used to not fighting. Right. I think a lot of people are finally getting to the place. At least I can't speak for other people, I can speak for myself. I'm fine. I think at first everything was a shock, you know, because of all the you know, rights kind of vanishing away. But um, all these things being reversed.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:31

But I think um once we get our bearings, like, and I think we're getting there.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

Yeah, totally. And I also think like yeah, exactly. Look out, and also I think like it's it's easy to lose hope and be like, oh my gosh, they're just taking everything down, and it took years and years to get to this place, and but it's like, babes, like everything that is being done can be undone, you know, because they're undoing things that were already done. So do you know what I mean? Like, I think yeah, I don't know. If it if anybody listening is like, wow, I'm really invested in I don't know, the environment or this or that, or something that that there's a lot of legislation attacking that, like, stay in it, stay in it, like stay in it, you got this, build those skills, we're gonna need you because at a certain point this administration is not gonna be in charge and someone else is gonna be in charge and they're gonna need a lot of support. And so, like, yes, stay in the resistance and also remember that there will be a point where things will be able to move faster on an institutional level towards protecting people and protecting the environment, and we'll need you, just hang in there.

SPEAKER_05 24:34

Hang in there. Why did the song We Shall Overcome all of a sudden? Right, exactly.

unknown 24:40

Sorry. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 24:43

Back on topic. Yes, yes, Nan Sarah. Can you talk about the song End of December? You have a beautiful way of singing about hard things.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

The end of December is a song that I wrote for a friend of mine who had been in an emotionally abusive relationship that was super, super taxing on them. That relationship was falling apart in a time where uh myself and this friend were not in the same place, like they were like across the country, and we would be talking and you know, just trying to support them whenever there would be sort of a a silence, you know, if neither of us really knew what to say. We would we always had our tea mug and we would just put our teacup on top of our head, and we would just sort of be there on our FaceTime or on our Zoom call, just with our teacup on our head. And shortly after that, the relationship did end. Thankfully, there's the pain of realizing the pain you've been in and grieving the relationship, even though it was so taxing. And I was sort of writing this song really for them, and just sort of thinking about how heavy that had been for them, and then also thinking about how we are so powerful because all of these ways that sometimes you can get manipulated, especially in in a situation of abuse, you get manipulated, and there are points where you start to believe narratives that are not true, and it's a very strange thing where your brain begins to almost assist in the abuse. And so that's kind of where that whine about, and I want to smash a teacup over my crown and watch the blood roll down, isn't that what love's about? So kind of thinking about the ways that you've learned through this relationship that love is pain or that love is supposed to hurt you. The very last lyric of the song is I know I won't scream at you because there's this desire to let out all this rage. It never actually happens in the song. Because a lot of times in life it doesn't, it doesn't always happen. We want to be the big person and you know, do the telling off and you did this to me and all of that stuff. And a lot of us are frankly just so conditioned to like not speak to other people that way or not express that pain that we're in. And so the last chorus is sort of a release of many things, of understanding that you may never have that moment, but also just holding that fact that it happened, that you were affected, that you were hurt, and looking at that and saying, Yes, this happened, and I'm choosing to just let it be. It may not be a moment of triumph in the way that I imagined, but it's a moment of triumph internally of that decision to just be kinder to that version of you and to accept a kinder version of love.

SPEAKER_05 27:05

And Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_03 27:09

Oh, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_05 27:11

You're an incredible singer-songwriter, and I look forward to hearing so much more of your work as the years pass, too.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

Thank you. I look forward to sharing it with you, and it's just been really lovely to talk about songs with you and life and how life shapes our songs and our perspectives. So I really appreciate you having me on. It definitely means a lot. I hope you know.

SPEAKER_05 27:30

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for listening to Americana Music.com podcast. Be sure to go to Americana Music.com and find playlists of the Americana artists we've interviewed here. Also, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform.