Learning the Sound: How Aneesa Rebuilt Her Own Voice in a Second Language

Aneesa Sheikh grew up speaking English. Only English. That is an ordinary enough fact about an American singer raised in Michigan, and it becomes an interesting one the moment you listen to what she has released since.

She was told not to bother. "Established artists in India and Bollywood told me I wouldn't be able to sing in Hindi and that I should stick to American English and modeling in India," she says. She wanted both languages instead — and the song she now points people to first is the proof: "Down," in its acoustic version. "Despite having an accent, I'm really proud that the song incorporates both and resonates with the desi diasporic audience."

"Down" was not written in a studio. It started in a car, driving with her Punjabi friends, who told her that every western-born girl would go crazy if she released something in both languages with a rap section. She went to the studio the same day and the lyrics flowed. The song has since been retitled — it was released as "NY 2 Lahore" and now carries the name "Down" — and it remains her most-played record.

Anyone who wants to hear the distance travelled can simply play her catalogue in order. The earlier releases and the most recent ones are separated by more than production. The difference is in the mouth — in vowels that sit where they should, in consonants that no longer arrive with an American edge, in phrasing that stops sounding translated. She hears it herself: she worked hard on her accent for the album she is finishing now, and describes the releases as a record of learning the language in public.

That progress has a method behind it, and a sentence she credits for it. She works on Hindi and diction with the dialect and acting coach Kulvinder Bakshish, who told her not to worry about seeing no progress at first — that if she stuck to daily practice, one day it would simply click. "Since working with him, the people around me have seen my biggest improvement yet," she says. "I now apply that mindset to everything." She works on movement with the choreographer Paresh Shirodkar, the second discipline a South Asian pop record actually demands of a performer who intends to carry it on a stage rather than only on a track.

The current week is unglamorous and exact: American English acting coaching on Wednesdays and Saturdays, plus daily vocal training and vocal cardio built into her workout. She has also posted the practice itself — scenes, dialogue and songs worked through in Hindi, on TikTok, in the state that practice is normally kept out of.

The reason it matters commercially is simple, and she is unusually clear-eyed about it. An artist who sings in a second language convincingly is not doing a crossover; she is doing the job. And the same discipline that produced a U.S. Figure Skating triple gold medalist and three-time state champion — hours of repetition against a standard that does not negotiate — is the one now pointed at a language.

Her most recent single, "Iconic," is about exactly that shift. In her own words: "After years of being defined by medals, titles, appearances and other people's expectations, 'iconic' means something very different to me now. It isn't about being seen as perfect or collecting another achievement — it's about becoming so secure in who you are that you no longer need a title, a stage or anyone else's approval to validate it."

The song is about no longer needing permission. The work behind it is about earning the ability not to need it.