Wafia is opening for Electric Guest on Monday, 10/28 at The Showbox. We’re excited to see her live after first hearing her single, “I’m Good” last summer. We had a chance to chat with her ahead of her show next week.

Seattleite: Tell me more about your latest single, “Be Fine”. What inspired you to write this song?

Wafia: It’s funny because with that song I wasn’t writing from any experience I’d had yet, it came more from wondering if the person I was with was right for me so it’s easy to write a song like that before actually going through it. By the time the song actually came out, I was absolutely not fine. It actually came out during a really dark place for me so it was hard to believe in then.

S: How did you get into music?

W: I didn’t have an ‘in’ to music from anyone I knew so I just posted originals and covers on Tumblr and then Soundcloud. Before that I’d just sing at any cafe or wedding that would have me.

S: Looks like Seattle is the first stop of your tour with Electric Guest. What are you most looking forward to?

W: The people! It’s been a while since I’ve played shows outside of LA/NY so I’m excited to play my new music in cities I haven’t been to for a while. ALSO… food.

S: How did your single “Hurts” in collaboration with Louis the Child and Whethan come about?

W: So I wrote that song with Sarah Aarons and Rogét Chahayed. Rogét was really instrumental in inviting Whethan over that night to come and produce out the song. Later we got the LTC boys on the track too because I had just wrapped up a tour with them.

S: Do you have other collaborations coming up?

W: Nothing I can say yet, but there are lots of people I’d love to work with, particularly Kacey Musgraves [haha].

S: I want to touch briefly on your heritage as I don’t know of a lot of other Muslim-Arabic women in the mainstream music scene. What is that like for you? How does this influence your lyric writing?

W: I think more so it influences the way I move in the world which obviously then trickles down into my perspective as person and my music. I don’t think theres a way in which it wouldn’t influence me.