When it comes to the Fordham University band scene, few people are as involved or as invested as Nicole “Nikki” Estelami, FCRH ’24. Estelami is one of Fordham’s most inventive musicians and vibrant faces on campus. Pursuing a marketing degree and visual arts minor while keeping a lively gigging schedule and ever-expanding film reel, it’s safe to say that no one can put Estelami in a box of any fashion.
Estelami did not begin at Fordham, but rather transferred in her second semester of her first year after a fall at McGill University, where she studied jazz upright bass. “Music is a big thing for me, so going into college… I was like ‘I want to keep doing music,’ but when I got into that program I realized it was just one-dimensional, [and] really, really focused on the playing aspect.” Her dissatisfaction propelled to transfer to the Gabelli School of Business here at Fordham, where she’s currently pursuing a marketing degree. The degree, she says, would have allowed her to have the best of both worlds: “I can do this [the marketing degree] and music, and still have a fallback.” It’s tough to believe she’s a Gabelli woman when you meet her — dressed in colorful and inventive outfits, with an endless knowledge of all things music and art. These passions, however, follow her throughout her Fordham career.
Nikki is a familiar face among the Fordham and Bronx band scene, where she has played in three different bands during her time at Fordham. “My first band at Fordham was called Just Email — we formed when I was a freshman literally just for Rod’s Battle of the Bands,” she recalls. “That disbanded, but we kept a lot of our members and we are part of this other project called Room de Dark now.” Additionally, she performs with the Fordham band Pacer, which she’s been a part of for two years now. Her most recent two bands play not only in the Fordham neighborhood, but also in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
These bands have provided an avenue for Estelami to both challenge herself as a musician while also connecting with the Fordham community. Just Email, for example, formed through a very simple encounter at Pod: “I just ran into someone at Pod who had a guitar case, and I never ended up playing music with him, but he connected me with other people.” The bands also strengthen Estelami as a musician. “Really pushing myself to gig weekly and to do good, not just for myself, but also for my bandmates — I feel like I’ve improved a lot over the last few years. It’s music that I’m passionate about, with people that I love.”
Along with her ever-growing gigging schedule, Estelami is a talented woman behind the camera. I knew Estelami first as an avid music fan and talented camerawoman when I met her in Keating basement, where we both work at WFUV Public Radio as videographers. In our pre-session chats, she’s our team’s go-to for questions about the band that has come in to record. Without missing a beat, she recalls bands, members, EPs and albums and can even trace you a history of their sound and genre. If there’s a band you have questions about, Estelami has all the answers. But even more than that, she’s one of the most friendly faces that I was fortunate enough to have on my team as a first-year who was very new at her job. She’s a valued part of our team that will be sorely missed next year.
Her passions for visual arts and video extend past concerts and music production, too. As a visual arts minor, she finds ways to combine her various threads of interest into complex and vivid projects full of rich storytelling. Through one of her classes last semester, she produced a short documentary about Manhattan neighborhoods that were razed and gentrified to establish the current Lincoln Center. “I ended up making a short film using an interview and splicing it and putting archival footage over it to turn it into a film,” she explains. Most recently, she’s working on a final for her zine class which will involve a compendium of short stories — all of which are written by herself.
In her free time, Estelami enjoys reading. “What I’m reading right now is ‘White Noise’ by Don DeLillo,” she tells me, who just so happens to be her favorite author.
After graduating from Fordham this year, Estelami hopes to find a job in the music industry and to further immerse herself in her and her band’s music. “Both bands are starting to put together records to put music on streaming platforms,” she explains. “Ideally, this semester, I want to get my [solo] stuff together and put that out, too.” Estelami is set to become one of Fordham’s most talented and cherished musical alumni. It’s with excitement that we send her off and await for her soon-to-be announced musical releases.
