Before he was channeling cosmic love frequencies as NEO 10Y, Nik Thakkar was already a fixture in London’s creative underground — part fashion insider, part cultural disruptor, and wholly impossible to miss. His energy was all over the city in the 2010s: art openings, runway shows, the kind of champagne-soaked nights where irony and glamour blur into one. Naturally, he ended up in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie — the cinematic explosion of that same world.
Blink and you might miss him, but listen closely: in the film’s trailer, Thakkar is the one screaming when Kate Moss “dies”. It’s chaotic, fabulous, and totally on-brand for the delirious spirit of Ab Fab. That brief, high-voltage moment feels like a time capsule — a flash of pre-NEO Thakkar, embodying the absurd excess the film so lovingly satirises.
At the time, Thakkar was deep in fashion, co-running the label Ada+Nik, modelling for Jean Paul Gaultier, consulting for luxury brands, and moving through the same creative circuits the Ab Fab universe parodied with affection and bite. His cameo sits perfectly between worlds — a fashion kid at the height of London’s glossy madness, moments before his metamorphosis into the artist now known for preaching universal love and radical consciousness.
Looking back, it’s kind of poetic. The scream that broke through the noise of Ab Fab would soon evolve into something more — a voice calling for connection, empathy, and awakening. But in that split second on film, Nik Thakkar wasn’t yet the visionary NEO 10Y. He was the chaos before the calm. And like everything he does, it was iconic.
Where He Is Now
Since that fleeting, fabulous cameo, NEO 10Y has built an entire sonic universe rooted in what he calls “LOVE ENERGY.” His genre-bending releases have earned coverage from Rolling Stone, Billboard, Paper, Dazed, Attitude,and Gay Times, each celebrating his fearless mix of futurist pop and spiritual activism. On stage, he’s brought immersive, mind-opening performances to spaces like The Roundhouse, The Troxy, West Hollywood Pride, Secret Garden Party, New York Fashion Week, and cultural events across Europe and the USA, combining hypnotic visuals with transcendent vocals and messages of peace, liberation, and unity.
From a scream in Absolutely Fabulous to a movement for collective awakening — NEO 10Y has always known how to make noise that means something.