After Season 1 of We Are Lady Parts brought together one of our new favorite fake bands in media with its titular punk act, Amina, Saira, Ayesha, Bisma and Taz are back for Season 2 on the 2024 TV schedule to play bigger shows and record their first album! When CinemaBlend spoke to the Peacock show’s creator, Nida Manzoor, about the new season, she talked about one major inspiration for the band and what London venues she got to bring Lady Parts to this time around.
Nida Manzoor isn’t simply the creator of a sitcom when it comes to We Are Lady Parts, she is also behind all the music and production of the all-Muslim band.
Through the making of the series, Manzoor has established a wonderfully authentic and fleshed-out ensemble of women who rock! With the new season now streaming with a Peacock subscription, I asked her what dream headliner she would choose to pair with Lady Parts. Here’s what she said:
The first time that pops into my head is, and no one's asked me that, which is really funny. It's X-Ray Spex. They are a British punk band from the '70s. And then the lead singer was this woman punk Poly Styrene who was like the only kind of black female singer around at the time, or certainly one of the very few women of color in punk. And she's just been such an inspiration for the show. I used a song of hers as the end credits in Polite Society and she's been on every We Are Lady Parts playlist that I've put together.
Manzoor decided to throw it back to one of the biggest influences to We Are Lady Parts, X-Ray Spex, since we’re dreaming big here!
The English punk rock band was formed back in 1976 after its frontwoman Poly Styrene was inspired by the Sex Pistols after seeing them live in Hastings. However, it was a short-lived act considering Styrene left the band in 1979 and went on to join the Hare Krishna movement. Check out the X-Ray Spex in their heyday via YouTube:
Poly Styrene, who comes from Somali and Scottish-Irish origins, is considered by many to be the pioneer of Black female punk music. Since then, other bands like Big Joanie, Meet Me @ The Altar or even Willow Smith have been examples of more Black women placing their mark on the genre.
During our interview, Manzoor also shared which iconic London venues Lady Parts had a chance to play at during the filming of Season 2. In her words:
What was really fun was I got to go and shoot in real locations, real big venues in London that I'd been to growing up and that I loved. In the opening of episode one, they play at a venue called The Garage, and that venue is where I interviewed the DIY punk band that was also a big inspiration for Lady Parts, a band called Big Joanie. And so I interviewed Big Joanie at the garage after one of their gigs in their green room. And then I was like, this is so perfect, and like I was so lucky because we got to shoot Lady Parts playing in that venue and it's like an iconic London venue. And there's another venue that we see in episode one called the Moss Club in Hackney, which is this very cool, like, it's an old working men's club. It's got this great aesthetic, a lot like wood paneling and it's again, an iconic East London venue. So, but you know, the opportunity to shoot there was also really exciting.
Along with tuning in to We Are Lady Parts Season 2 on Peacock to see the fictional band blow the house down on these venues, you can check out Manzoor’s other music-influenced project, Polite Society, with an Amazon Prime subscription. We named the movie one of our favorites of 2023!
All around, these music-driven projects are wonderful, and it's so lovely to hear about what inspired them.
