Elected in 2019 at the age of just 26, the MP for Coventry South has spent her short time in parliament establishing herself as one of the British Left’s next great hopes. Be it from the the benches of Westminster or among the crowds of a protest, she stands tall as a frequent and vocal scourge of the status quo, driven by a deep-rooted desire to create a better, bolder world.
Text: Ben Smoke – Photography: Dan Wilton
A POLITICIAN
AS DECEMBER 2020 RUMBLED INTO VIEW, Twitter was abound with people sharing their end-of-year stats from Spotify. Labour MP Zarah Sultana was no different. She posted a screenshot of her most-played artists, along with the caption: “It is what it is innit.” The graphic that accompanied the tweet painted quite the picture.
At number four of her top five sat Lewis Capaldi. An embarrassing entry for a middle-aged suburban mum, let alone a 27-year-old woman. Next was One Direction, a band popular with 12-year-olds a decade previously. Placed above them was Taylor Swift, a woman who – in my humble opinion – had a standout year and represented an honourable addition to the list. But beating her to number one spot was Korean boy band BTS. It was a brave post for the her to make, given the average age of BTS fans resides somewhere in the teens. People responded to the tweet with gentle digs. “You’re so basic I love it,” read one. Another, slightly less forgiving, noted: “Your politics over your music then.”
A couple of months later, I sat down with Zarah over Zoom. I started the call with the intention of talking cold politics, but arrived swiftly at the subject of music. For Zarah, though, there is a key link between the two. “We have to be unashamedly us!” she says, referring to her Spotify list. “I think that is a radical act. Capitalism profits on our insecurities. My whole algorithm is telling me to get a nose job or a lip filler and actually, it’s really radical embracing myself – and equally embracing my music taste.”
A little later, I dropped her a text asking for some BTS recommendations so that I could expand my musical horizons. She responded with an exhaustive list of tracks (including deep cuts, covers, and songs from members’ solo projects), along with a brief explanation as to why each one was important to her. She finished her message with a determined sign-off: “I’m not prepared for any other situation than you joining the BTS army.” It was the kind of text you expect from a close friend when you finally show interest in a band they’ve been banging on about for an eternity. The kind of text, I think, that says a lot about who Zarah Sultana is;
