In The Simpsons Movie, the town of Springfield gets encased within a massive glass dome and it's a good metaphor for how I often feel. Everything and everyone in life is inside this dome, but I am on the outside. I can't find the entrance. Where's the door so I can be part of it all?

It's a strange sensation, being around people but not knowing how to connect, there's a continual low level hum of nervousness, sometimes so strong I just want to disappear. As the years have gone on I've wondered if it's me in the glass dome not letting anyone else in, but whatever, I've become adept at acting my way through it all. At a quick glance you'd never guess this is how I feel.

Lockdown has shone a searing light on the significance of 'connection'. I live alone so I don't wake up connecting with family, like a partner or kids or even a flatmate, and I've read countless pieces like this:

“When we feel part of a group and can draw on the support of other group members, it increases the sense of coping and lowers stress. Relatedly, membership of social groups is a powerful prophylactic against a wide range of mental and physical disorders. That is why, even as we have to physically distance from others, we must devise new ways to retain social connectedness.” The Psychologist, 10 lessons for dealing with a pandemic.

For me, lockdown also brought relief. A break from travelling to work events in the UK and abroad and going to social things 'in real life' all of which I find stressful. Rewarding, for sure, but always pushing me out of my zone of comfort. At social or work occasions I often talk too much or get hyper, or I shrink and am overwhelmed. I pick up on tons of 'signals': people's energies, their anxieties and approvals or disapprovals, judgements of my status or lack of it, my looks, their defences, my defences. It's exhausting. But this is the story of how I found a place where all of that dissolved into mist, became irrelevant, and where, eventually, I stopped feeling like an outsider. That place was on the club dancefloor.

I've always loved music, it was part of my life from when I was about two years old. I lived with my nan and grandpops and we'd put a record on like, 'Hello Dolly', and sing along with Louis Armstrong and Barbara Streisand. When I moved in with my mum and stepdad I was given that record player and by the time I was twelve I had a collection of over 110 singles. When I was about fourteen I started going to youth discos.

Oh youth discos! 'Ain't No Stopping Us Now', 'One Nation Under a Groove' and when I heard 'Rapper's Delight' by the Sugarhill Gang I was like, 'What? What?? What is this???!!!' I practically levitated on the dancefloor I was buzzing so hard. I'd never heard anything like it. In these slightly crummy youth centres and halls everything complicated melted away. I could get lost in what literally felt like a magical forest. Instead of leaves, tree roots and mosses it was beats, bass vibrations, melodies and vocals that offered vibrant colour, texture and light. To this day, I can't say what is happening when I move to music but it's very primal and very pleasurable. Is it the left and right sides of my brain in perfect balance, the act of physically expressing what I'm hearing, the feelings a track invokes? All I know is that for so many of us, it is pure bliss. We 'get lifted'.

I remember at one of the first youth nights, hanging around a group of boys who were great dancers, not to speak to them, no way, but to learn their moves. Weirdly, I began to feel connected to them by the fact I was feeling the music in the way I could see they were feeling it too. And that stayed with me. By my late teens/early twenties I was going to clubs on my own, almost oblivious to the social factor, I was just there to dance.

The way I am is a result of nature and nurture. Lockdown has been an eye-opener, I didn't understand how much we all need to be in the actual presence of other people. It made me keenly aware of the elderly who live alone and how that must feel, day in and day out. Part of my nature also insists I have time on my own, so I can be in a sort of 'creative drift'. Yesterday, I sat in woodlands completely alone for hours; I read, drew and wandered around taking photos of the sunlight firing up leaves into bright green glitter. Doing things alone gives me the glee of a mini-adventure.

Nurture-wise is not an easy story. Like many others, I come from generations of ugly trauma, and my own childhood is complicated. Music has been a vital – and I mean that, an absolutely vital part of being able to get through life. In particular, soul, RnB and folk music helped my mum and my nan to find glimmers of joy in life; music feels woven into my genetic make up. Today, all my dearest and closest friends who will be with me until I'm no longer here, these comrades who, to me, are like a line up of Marvel superheroes, just so incredible and awe-inspiring; they have all come to me through music.

So, the moment that life sprung open. I was in the queue, on my own, for the Fez's New Year's Eve party at the Starlight club in Paddington. The venue was rammed and I had as much chance of getting in as Boris Johnson has of developing humility. A loud woman came out of the club door with an air of 'sorting things out' and started signalling to a couple of girls ahead of me in the queue who I recognised from other clubs I'd been to. The bouncer was going to lift them over the high railings that we were all behind and they'd get into the club. I could not have been more shocked than when one of those girls pointed to me and said, “And her.”

Inside, I loitered close by but had no idea how to start talking to the girl who'd got me in so I smiled awkwardly. Luckily she had more skills and broke through my oddity simply by asking if I wanted a drink. And that was it. Ella [name changed] had tapped into her cosmic angel, her compassionate, intuitive self and in that teeny-tiny moment I was no longer an outsider. One thing that can be said of me is that I may not be proactive but when I sense an opportunity I swing at it like Tarzan on a vine. From that night on I would tag along with Ella, her sister and their friend to go clubbing. Often four times a week. Slow Motion on Tuesdays, Respect at the Wag on Fridays, random warehouse parties or whatever on Saturdays and Dingwalls on Sundays (then Talkin Loud at the Fridge after Dingwalls stopped). Night bus home together.

I still had a sense of 'my outsider' because I suppose that lives within me, and actually it helps me to follow my own path, not the crowd, it forces me to think for myself. But on the dancefloor I am always on the inside. I so remember the nights we had, hands in the air, smiling so deeply and fully and beautifully, connecting with each other, and the DJs and everyone around us who was feeling it the way we were. I felt part of something, a sort of family, and that was a first.

Music has the power to tilt the world in the direction of togetherness and compassion. It's an expression of, and speaks directly to, our spirit. Life is not a smooth ride (understatement) and club culture is not an answer. In fact at that time I felt there were many prejudices and inequalities in the scene, but there was also generosity and care and the friends I made. The people that brought me inside and have done so much to help me blossom – into what, I'm still not sure yet, but I know now that I can return that love over and over. And that's what being inside means. Love.

Karachi rap

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