A Map, Not a Résumé: Aneesa Sheikh's Career, Place by Place

A résumé tells you what someone did. A map tells you where they had to be to do it. For the singer and guitarist Aneesa Sheikh, the map is the more revealing document. Here it is, stop by stop.

Lexington, Kentucky

Where she was born. Kentucky is also the home she asked to go back to, on one hard day in the car during her skating years, when she told her father she wanted to be with her mother and her brother.

The road to Michigan, via Ohio

Seven hours each way, twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Partway through, a stop at a rink in Ohio for two hours on the ice, then onward. Her father drove every trip. She practised singing and guitar in the passenger seat.

Michigan

Where the medals happened. She was Michigan State Champion three years running, from 2016 to 2018, and became a U.S. Figure Skating triple gold medalist, with gold-level tests in Moves in the Field, Free Skating and Ice Dance in 2017 and 2018. In 2020 she was Miss Michigan Teen USA.

New York

NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, 2022 to 2025, graduated summa cum laude. A studio apartment near Madison Square Park, in the Flatiron district, which she calls "Aneesa headquarters." Skating for fun, no longer competitively, at Chelsea Piers. A slot singing at the Masala Mixtape.

London, Brooklyn, Michigan, Mumbai

The four stops in the making of her single "Iconic": started in London, carried to Brooklyn, worked on in Michigan, finished in Mumbai. Its working title, "Brooklyn to Bombay," named two of them.

Dubai

Where she was living while "Iconic" came together. The Arabic instrumentation she heard there went into the record, through producer Hriday Gatani. Dubai is also home to AAVVA, the atelier behind two of the looks in her heritage couture editorial.

Detroit

Sound Board, at MotorCity Casino Hotel, 12 October 2024: opening for The Wanted. The night she names as her most memorable, because her producers and mentors Lewis Hensley and Yorgos Kerasiotis joined her on stage.

North America, Germany, Asia

Supporting Atif Aslam on his North American tour in 2023. Headline shows in Germany and across Asia.

Cannes

The red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.

What the map shows

Read in order, the map is less a glamorous itinerary than a record of distance covered for the work. The longest and most repeated journey on it is not to Cannes. It is the drive between Kentucky and Michigan, twice a week, for years.

She is Indian-American; her father is from Punjab, India. The full story is on her journal: From the Ice to the Croisette. Official site: aneesaofficial.com.

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