For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, Neemz is her. Many may know the Boston-based Palestinian artist for her music, including hit songs Runnin’ Thru The City, Damaged Feelings, and her most recent release YAPPIN. Neemz performed at the renowned music festival Boston Calling in 2023.
But Neemz is hardly just a musician or a rapper. The Boston-based multihyphenate, embodying every sense of the word, first began her creative career through photography and later through modeling, working with the likes of KidSuper, Converse, Nike and Bodega, the boutique sneaker store with locations in Boston and Los Angeles.
The artist even worked with Converse, becoming a Converse All Star, creative directing her own campaign at home, and color designing a pair with her personal story tied to it.
After prominent coverage in Marie Claire and the Boston Globe for her modeling and photography, being featured in an exhibit at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and walking New York Fashion Week for KidSuper in 2018, Neemz connected with several songwriters and producers and tried her hand at music.
“I literally went on Garageband at first, and I started recording myself through my iPhone wired headphones, searching my favorite artist on YouTube and saying “type beat”,” the artist shares with Complex MENA. “And from that, being able to record myself was a way of just hearing myself, playing with plug-ins, whether it was auto-tune or reverb.”
If that wasn’t enough, Neemz recently started working with New Balance on concept and footwear design after her application for New Balance and Pensole, a sneaker design academy based in Detroit, got accepted in 2023.
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Make no mistake, the independent artist remains a juggernaut, a hustler’s hustler quietly building her creative empire as she brings her vision to life.
“You want to express yourself differently,” Neemz emphasizes. “It’s not just modeling, looking pretty and cute and sexy and all this stuff. You want to be able to express yourself in creativity, for longevity. So photography gave me the eye, and modeling set the confidence for the next step. When I started to do music, I had that confidence already built because I had my reps in, being in the mirror, looking at yourself, talking to yourself, upping yourself when you’re going into these rooms for shows or whatever it is.
Complex MENA caught up with Neemz on a long, winding, and hilarious call to break down her career and to talk about sneaker lore, making music from her parents’ house, New York Fashion Week, and much more.
The following conversation has been edited and condensed for length.
Complex MENA: Okay let’s start first with your stage name, Neemz. How did you come up with that?
Neemz: My friends and my family would call me “Nemo”, which is a nickname for my name Tusneem. I didn’t like it for long because, “I didn’t want to be nicknamed like the fish!” That wasn’t my vibe. And “Nemo” started to feel a little too childish for me when I got to high school and was playing basketball. “Nemo” just didn’t feel fierce, I needed to upgrade it.
Essentially, my name came from people calling me “Tusneems” [adding an “s” to the end of her name]. And then it got shortened to “Neems” and it just stuck. But I wanted that name to end with a “Z”. Then my family called me that, and everyone on the team and in high school called me that, and that’s how people knew me. As Neemz.
Complex MENA: So who’s your favorite basketball team?
Neemz: The Celtics. Obviously. I loved Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen when they were playing together. And now I love Jaylen Brown.
Complex MENA: What was your first memory with music in general?
Neemz: I was born in the US and my family and I lived in Medford, Massachusetts. Growing up, my parents and my uncle would rotate carpools for my cousins and I to take us to school. Whenever it was my uncle’s turn to drive, he would just have a road trip playlist of Arabic music. A lot of Oum Kalthoum, Hisham Abbas, just very traditional art creatives and musicians in the Arab world. That was my exposure to music, but it was just very cultural and close to home.
And then when we went to Jordan, funny enough, that’s when I started to dabble into curating music. That was from going to Amman and living there for five years and going to The International Academy of Amman, where your professors and all your teachers are British or are from New Zealand or Australia. We started to tap into music, my sisters and I, listening to Jesse McCartney or hearing 50 Cent on the radio—the cool radio, the one that had the English music. Then we would go home and search all of the songs on LimeWire to download them and burn CDs.
My older sister and I had great taste in music.
Complex MENA: So you’re an independent artist, you are doing everything. Talk to me about why that’s important to you.
Neemz: I get really passionate about things, and sometimes it can come off intense. I’m very hands-on with the vision. This is my vision, I have to be hands-on with it. I’m not going to just give it to somebody else to handle it with care. This is like a baby to me. And this is specifically about creative treatments for music videos, cover arts, rollouts, and all the extra stuff, the fluff that comes after the music is made. Because when I get into the studio, I don’t always have an idea of what I want to do, but I have very much hands-on experience of how it’s developed.
I’m the artist at the end of the day. I’m the seed, and the roots are extending out of me, and the roots are touching all of these other points, whether it’s the photographer, videographer, producer, all these team members are all connected to me. So it has to stem from a root, and this is the root right here, me. That’s why I’m so involved, because I’m also curious as a creative person to learn and apply, not everybody’s like that. Sometimes you could be the center and the root, but you’re not involved. You’re just the muse for someone, for a different person to use you as the muse. But I’m the muse for myself, and I see what I want to build. And I’m truly thankful I get to work with talented creatives, cause nothing is possible without a team.
Complex MENA: You mentioned you were doing music around the early part of your modeling career. How did you first get into modeling?
Neemz: Right after college, in 2018, I started getting into modeling. My vision was to be the next Bella Hadid, but the Palestinian hijabi version. There’s one Palestinian, Bella Hadid, and she’s on the run with me. She’s the best model ever. I want to be the hijabi version of her. You know what I’m saying?
When I hit Bodega, I was like, okay, the intention is to make it to New York Fashion Week. I just had this vision, it was here in my head, bro. I would go to New York often because I would get invited to parties and shows there, and then KidSuper—right before he truly popped off—posted an open casting call on Instagram for his runway show. I DMed him and said “I’d love to walk the runway for your show. I hope you see this message. I’ll be your first hijabi model.” KidSuper replied back saying “Epic, let’s do it.”
As I was waiting at KidSuper’s studio, that’s how I met all the people important in my music career. Jordan Beckford [a producer] that produced “Runnin Thru The City”, Joey Bada$$, Dani Leigh, all of them. I met Renell Medrano, ICE Studios founder, and I got connected to music. Once I started making music, that’s how I met all the local Boston people and started supporting them, like Sean Wire, Felix!, Van Buren Records, Cousin Stizz, Miranda Rae.
Complex MENA: That’s an incredible journey to take. So then what brought you to New Balance?
Neemz: I had a friend named Greggy who was working at New Balance at the time as a footwear designer. He told me about Pensole [a sneaker design academy based in Detroit, Michigan] and that I should apply to it. He was showing me some of his sketches, so I started sketching shoes and going on Pinterest for inspiration. I finally decided to apply to Pensole, and as part of the application they ask that you design a shoe from scratch with a brief to solve for. I had a really cool concept for a shoe inspired by Palestinian resilience. It was the first time I designed a concept like that and it was the most research I had ever done.
To get into Pensole, they had to accept your application and the footwear partner company had to accept your application. My first Pensole application was for Nike, it got denied, but my application for New Balance x Pensole, was accepted as a footwear designer. I went through the four week program and excelled with mentors like E. Scott, Ms. Suzette, Jenna Moore, and Sam Ryan, receiving my industry certification as a footwear designer.
New Balance hired me to work on their Concept Design team, which is basically the early beginnings of research and forecast before a shoe is designed. Our team is the one who gives footwear designers in depth research for inspiration. We forecast trends, color, pulling fashion insight, reading a lot, and forming a direction for the team. It feels strong to be in this role.
Complex MENA: Okay, Neemz. Best question for last. What are your top five New Balance sneakers of all time?
Neemz: In no order, right? I have to start with the Bryant Giles x New Balance 2002R Mules. That’s first. Everything else after that is in no order:
- New Balance x Auralee RC30
- Bodega x New Balance 9060 “Age of Discovery”
- GANNI x New Balance 1906R “Blazing Yellow”
- Joe Freshgoods x New Balance 993 “Performance Art Blue”
US-based music writer and editor.
