Books To Live By With Mariella Frostrup

After winding through the sunny streets of Bristol to the O2, Mariella finds NAO fresh from her sound check in a cosy, dark corner of the venue’s bar. As the pair discuss NAO’s female-focused book choices, they uncover interesting themes from her life. Her astonishing personal story is slowly explored, with NAO discussing her journey from growing up sharing a bed with her siblings, to getting a prestigious scholarship to the Guildhall, becoming a SoundCloud sensation, to starting her own record label - and now having 1 track alone with over 34 million streams on Spotify and a sell out European tour coming to an end. Many of NAO’s book choices focus on histories which remain untold by GCSE syllabuses, from the rule of Chairman Mao in China (Wild Swans by Jung Chang) to the slave trade of Ghana (Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi), often homing in on the inter-generational female narratives that weave through these stories in particular. She talks about the effects of not seeing darker skinned female artists on MTV w