Musician and actor Dua Saleh joins Local Show host Diane for a conversation on their debut album I SHOULD CALL THEM, their world tour, their time on the Netflix show Sex Education, and more. You can listen using the audio player above, and you’ll also find a transcript of the interview below.

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Interview Transcript

Diane: You're listening to The Current, I'm Diane. Dua Saleh is an actor and musician from the Twin Cities who is now based in Los Angeles. Dua plays Cal Bowman in the Netflix series Sex Education and released their debut full length album last October. It's a collection of R&B infused electronic indie pop songs titled I SHOULD CALL THEM. Dua is touring in support of the album and joins me in the studio now. Dua Saleh, welcome to The Current.

Dua Saleh: Thanks! I'm excited to be here, Diane.

Diane: Tour started in the Pacific Northwest, January 11 in Seattle. You've toured across the United States, ended your tour in Minneapolis — not ended, but the US half — in Minneapolis this past Sunday. Give me a little crash course of how it's been.

Dua Saleh: It's been amazing. We started off with a bang. So we sold out Seattle and Portland. And even before we even got to the European leg, we're not there yet right now, but we sold out Berlin as well. All the shows have been completely packed, and it's been really amazing. And it's just really an immersive experience for me to be able to actually, physically, hold people and understand how they're connecting to my music. It's been absolutely amazing, especially since it's my first album. It's my debut LP. That's a really special moment for me.

Diane: Tell me about your show in Minneapolis. That was amazing. I loved the line dancing, and I love your fashion. I love all of it.

Dua Saleh: Thank you! Full house, obviously, hometown. It was like people shoulder to shoulder. It was really amazing to see folks. There were a lot of people that I saw from childhood who showed up, just like gay people from middle school who are like, "What the hell? Look at you, you're all grown up and you're doing drag and clown makeup for your shows and painting your teeth black." And yeah, it's really amazing to see you in your element and to have other people see your explosive personality on stage when you've only ever showed it to people who you were close to. So yeah, it's been really nice to just be myself fully on stage, and to witness people from the state that I grew up in understand what my story means to me in the way that I share it with people through music, and also just to have people, like Sex Education fans, come up to me and be like, "I just knew you as Cal before, and then I started following your music afterwards and seeing the differences between you two." And also, just being proud as a trans person, witnessing your growth and development. It's been really amazing. And I just feel showered with love.

Diane: That was one thing that I kind of just picked up on, is like, I was there at the show and I was like, this is just a haven for queer people, it just feels like a refuge, a safe place to just be yourself. And as someone who also identifies as queer, it just felt, I don't know, I just felt like a warmth inside. So I just want to say thank you for providing that space and giving people someone to look up to, as someone who just can be themselves and put themselves out there in that way.

Dua Saleh: Thank you! I was excited to have you and The Current there witnessing my growth. And obviously, it's just amazing to see people who have seen me when I was in college, just like a poet in uni and stuff. It's really nice.

Diane: What is getting into that creative space like for you? Because I think about how 2019 you put out Nūr and then just consistently have written music and put out music. So I gotta imagine you're creating a lot.

Dua Saleh: It's honestly, like other artists, like all of us, our art is a safe haven for us, like you said, going back to the words that you just like brought in. It's catharsis. It's just me swimming in my reality and allowing people into this special place in my heart, and allowing people to understand, just what's going on in my mind for me, like the different voices that I do, the falsetto, all these things are soothing to me, are calming to me, are invigorating to me, are imaginative spaces for me to just like flow to the ebb and tide of the universe, and just to express myself fully. And then later on, I'm able to intellectualize, just like psychoanalyzing myself, and that's I think the fun part for me, also. Outside of actually being in the studio and just singing and feeling free, being able to bring in, my material reality, like talking about climate change and Sudan, and talking about all of these things that are connected to Earth and the security of our planet, into lived experiences that I had with relationships, or just like life experiences that I had with specific people, and creating those connections. I think that's how, like the falsetto and the deeper chest voice and the belting on "Want," they all come out naturally because I'm just ruminating on life. I'm ruminating on the last time I saw my ex, and then me later on being like, “Well, I am talking about toxicity. I am talking about love.” And I feel like that is something that we can connect to broader reality for us on Earth, just as witnessing things like the fires in Los Angeles and seeing the oil pipelines going through the Midwest, North Dakota and Minnesota and Canada, and seeing toxic waste and seeing technological proliferation erupting in the Congo and war that causes crops and fields to be burned in Sudan, like all of these things that have accumulated, being able to tie that into or relate that to my actual life, and being like, "Wow, maybe this relationship was toxic, and maybe our relationship with the Earth is toxic, and maybe we can have space to talk about both things." I don't know, just be more mindful of our beautiful planet.

Diane: Beautifully said. I want to ask you about the Recording Academy. You became a member, and you were on their watch list, and I also hear that you were a voting member. What has that experience been like?

Dua Saleh: Oh my god, amazing. I feel warmth in my body right now just thinking about it. Because I don't know, every person who makes music thinks about the Grammys at some point, even if they pretend they don't. Secretly, they do. Actually, at my Minneapolis VIP meet and greet, we had a Q&A and somebody asked me about that, and they were like, "What were you most excited about when it came to the Recording Academy?" And I was like, voting for my heroes, like Beyonce, or voting for my friends, like Willow Smith, and being able to, witness the wealth of growth, especially when it comes to femmes in music. I think the Recording Academy added 3,000 femmes and non-men to The Academy as voting members this year, and suddenly, Beyonce wins Album of the Year for the first time. And we see younger artists like Doechii emerging and winning Best Rap Album.

Diane: I was so excited. I'm such a fan of Doechii, holy buckets.

Dua Saleh: Literally. I'm excited for Doechii especially, just like in general, but I'm excited now after voting for Doechii and seeing her win, and then there's a festival in Montreal, I'm performing in the same lineup as Doechii, so I'm hoping that I meet her and I can flex that I voted for her and be like, "Hey friend." I'm like a super stan.

Diane: A lot of people ask me who's my favorite artist or who are some of my favorite artists. I always, always mention you, I'm a huge fan. Well, just like your voice style, the depth of your writing, your music's cutting edge, too. So sometimes I'll be "They're on the show Sex Education; they play Cal." And they'll be like, "Oh my gosh, really? I love Cal!" And I think that's so cool to have seen you go from just being this amazing artist here in Minneapolis and then all the sudden being flown out to London and acting alongside some of these really prestigious names. And to be able to do that with such charisma was really cool to see.

Dua Saleh: Thank you. Yeah, it is exciting. I think for me, I'm still processing it. I don't think I, in my lifetime, fully processed what has happened to me. Just because I started off as a nerdy poet in Minneapolis who didn't think that they were going to be a singer, and then suddenly was in like, a one of the top 10 Netflix shows in the U.S. Mind blowing to me. It's been an interesting experience. Obviously, it's my first time in major film and TV, and being there with folks like Asa and Ncuti and Emma, and just like all the cast is huge, and has such a huge resume, and the show is Emmy awarded. It just feels like a completely different universe for me to suddenly be thrust into. I feel grateful because the show and Cal as a character has allowed me to process a lot of my personal trauma and my emotions as it relates to just hiding the fact that I was trans as a young person, knowing that I was trans in high school, and not articulating that. And reading articles and texts and books about like transness and queer theory, and being able to go to college and get a degree in gender and women's sexuality studies, and then later on, being put on this major queer-coded show, like absolutely amazing to me, and I think that translates into my music as well. You can see it in specific songs, like "Daylight Falls" I literally was talking about ideation, which my character was going through, but also I literally have had attempts, like when I was younger, when I was still processing my transness and not fully out to everyone. And also on this album, like having the opportunity to delve into queer love and talk about that and express that, and being able to intellectualize that. Because Cal goes from talking to a young boy who doesn't really understand their transness and doesn't view their relationship as queer, to suddenly dating another sapphic, like a femme, and having that response to it. And then me, just being kind of forced to think about like my actual relationships in life that I've had with femmes, and then that translating into all these different emotions that have burst out of me, like grieving and lamentation and pure unadulterated bliss and joy. And at the end of it, you can hear kind of like an explosion that stemmed from grieving a relationship and pain, which literally manifested and transmuted into a new sub-genre of R&B called Black R&B, which is black metal and R&B music. So the show has allowed me to really sit in my emotions and think about my real life, whether I want to or not. And that has allowed me to open up universes that I never thought that I could. And so I'm really grateful for the show, for many reasons.

Diane: Dua Saleh, thank you so much for coming to the studio at The Current. So grateful to have you in today and excited to see more of what you put out and following your journey as an artist here on The Current and beyond.

Dua Saleh: Thank you so much for having me on The Current, and it's so nice to see you again, Diane. A friend from a long time ago.

Diane: You’re listening to The Current, I’m Diane.

Credits

Guest – Dua Saleh
Host – Diane
Producer – Nilufer Arsala
Digital Producer – John Kueppers

External Links

Dua Saleh – Bandcamp

Dua Saleh – Website