Natasha Kahn
| Bat for Lashes | |
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Bat for Lashes performing at the Plug Awards in New York City on 6 March 2008
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Natasha Khan |
| Born |
25 October 1979 London, England |
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| Years active | 2006–present |
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| Website | www |
Natasha Khan (born 25 October 1979), known professionally as Bat for Lashes, is an English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She has released four studio albums, Fur and Gold (2006), Two Suns (2009), The Haunted Man (2012) and The Bride (2016), receiving Mercury Prize nominations for Fur and Gold, Two Suns and The Bride. Khan is also the vocalist for Sexwitch, a collaboration with the rock band Toy and producer Dan Carey.
Khan was born to an English mother, Josie, and Pakistani father, squash player Rehmat Khan. A member of the Khan family, she is the granddaughter of squash player Nasrullah Khan and the niece of squash players Jahangir Khan and Torsam Khan, and the stepdaughter of singer and actress Salma Agha and half-sister of actress Sasha Agha. The family moved to Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, when she was five years old. She attended many of her father's and her uncle Jahangir's 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 when Khan was 11, she taught herself to play the piano, which became "a channel to express things, to get them out".
Khan was subject to racial abuse during secondary school for being Pakistani, played truant, and was suspended after swearing and throwing a chair at a teacher. She told The Daily Telegraph: "I was an outsider at school. When I came back from being suspended they had told the small group of friends that I did have there that they weren't allowed to talk to me because I was a really bad influence. Then it got quite lonely." 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." With money saved from the job, she embarked on a three-month road trip through the United States and Mexico.
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