Zain Javadd Malik, better known as Zayn Malik, is one of the most notable South Asian artists in the 21st century. He is known for being in One Direction, the pop boy band that took over the world in the 2010s. Most members of Gen Z have grown up with One Direction–watching Harry, Niall, Louis, Liam, and Zayn steal the hearts of most preteens. But what we didn’t know when we were 10 and jamming out to “What Makes You Beautiful,” is the dark world of the music industry, one that consists of eating disorders, abnormal sleeping schedules, and physical altercations. One Direction split into multiple directions, and Zayn is objectively one of the boys who made it out on top, with a solidified solo career.
Born on January 12, 1993, in the UK, Zayn grew up in Bradford, United Kingdom. In April 2010, Zayn auditioned for the X-Factor, which was one of the biggest singing competition shows. Artists such as Little Mix and James Arthur have won the X Factor before, but ironically, One Direction didn’t even win during their season. All of the boys auditioned initially as solo artists, the thought of being in a band hadn’t even occurred to them. This was all until Judge Simon Cowell decided to put Zayn, Harry, Louis, Liam, and Niall together, and thus One Direction was born.
Surprisingly, he almost didn’t make it to the auditions if it weren’t for his mom pushing him to go. Although it was a gruesome over-an-hour car ride, he has a whole generation of people who are so glad he did. After Zayn made it past the first round of auditions the rest of the show became a little messy. He didn’t want to do the dance numbers and practices because he was embarrassed about messing up.
It is clear from the beginning of his career that Zayn does not enjoy the spotlight. As an artist, he wants to do just that, create art. Everything else that comes with being a musician in the 21st century—specifically a mainstream artist—is not something Zayn wishes to indulge in. From no right to privacy to being treated like a tourist attraction or zoo animal, celebrities are seen as less than human, and more like abstract things you can buy, consume, and look up to.
The mental and physical struggles Zayn was going through during his One Direction years seemingly went unnoticed by the general public, especially US fans, because of how young most One Direction fans were when they were a band. While on one of their early tours in 2012-2013, the boys were on the road constantly due to their rapidly increasing fan base. They were also recording their next album at the same time to meet the high demands of pop stardom. There are videos of the tour behind the scenes on YouTube showing their producer waking up Zayn from the tour bus to record a verse for one of the songs. Zayn even claims in the video that he got less than 4 hours of sleep. Throughout his years in the band, Zayn suffered from an eating disorder, because of the struggles and immense pressure put on a young star in the limelight. This didn’t raise any red flags when this video was released in the 2010s, but now fans are looking back at the true gravity of the situation.
Years after One Direction split, one of the members, Liam Payne, went on Logan Paul’s podcast Impaulsive in May 2022 and exposed the hidden animosity that existed between some of the boys. He shares a story of how he and one (unknown) member of the band got into a physical altercation backstage at one of their shows at one point. Many fans have speculated that the fight was between Payne and Malik because there has been a history of animosity between them. This headline once again reiterates the fact that One Direction started off as a group of 5 boys who didn’t know each other, and even though it may seem like they were as close as brothers on screen, their management and the pressures of being young and famous impacted them more than anyone could have imagined.
After Zayn’s One Direction years, he released a few bodies of work that have defined him as a solo artist. His debut album, “Mind of Mine,” includes the hit “Pillowtalk” and his sophomore album “Icarus Falls” includes “Dusk Till Dawn.” His second album once again solidified the fact that he wanted to create music to simply create music. This idea is presented again in his third album “Nobody is Listening,” with its paradoxical title.
Growing up and listening to mainstream music was always a challenge for me. I think a lot of Asians, specifically South Asian people, can agree with me when I say that we never really saw people who looked like us on screen. Eventually, we accepted that fact and continued to listen to music that truly didn’t represent us, because what else are we supposed to do as kids? But, when One Direction became huge in their own right, it was an exciting time to listen to pop music, an exciting time to love a boyband! Zayn will always hold a special place in my heart because he defied the homogenous makeup of a typical boyband and later pursued his own music and craft on his own terms, which essentially inspires me to continue to fight for my own artistic and creative liberty in my own writing.
Like many artists are confessing now, Zayn doesn’t like the spotlight. He likes writing and producing music, but everything else that comes with being a musician in the 21st century is not what he enjoys or prioritizes. With social media and the entertainment industry becoming more and more physically and emotionally taxing, people just want to live their lives without having to conform to society’s unattainable standards.
Zayn went on the Call Her Daddy podcast by Alex Cooper in July 2023, which was very rare because he rarely does interviews these days. He proceeded to talk about how important his privacy is, especially being he has a 3-year-old daughter, Khai. This is what we will most likely continue to see in the rest of his career, a thick line created between Zayn’s personal life and the art he produces.
Growing up with someone like Zayn has been very positive, especially for all the young South Asian girls and boys, who saw someone that looks like them performing on a mainstream level. During the early 2010s, there weren’t many South Asian artists in the pop world, so Zayn was also seen as an inspiration to smaller artists as well. He might have stepped out of the mainstream pop world, but his impact on early 2010s music will always be cemented in Gen Z’s minds.
Being a musician or in the entertainment industry in 2023 means something completely different than what it meant in the 2010s. Even though it has been more than 10 years since One Direction, there is still a long way to go in improving how musicians are treated. Contracts that young artists sign when they first start their careers need to be ethically produced and have rules that the artist first and foremost agrees to. There needs to be a healthy relationship between the artist(s) and their managers, along with a separation between their famous facade and who they are when they aren’t performing, which is the bare minimum. Zayn as an artist and person serves as a reminder to us that you can overcome the obstacles of your career and find a truly happy place to end up in, and that there isn’t just one direction you have to go in.
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