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Editorial overview Local
relevance interview Looking
back in protest Common
songs
People will talk
or protest, cry or laugh, write poetry or make plays. People will create
music too. How else do you survive in today’s Pakistan; a country where
everything wrong seems to have come and settled at one time; where people,
who get back to their business after a disaster has struck, are both
appreciated for their resilience and castigated for their indifference;
where death is so familiar that you can not continue to live without a sense
of guilt. The sense of insecurity is
as stark as that of helplessness. The arts here are inevitably
geographically bound and must respond to what is happening in the immediate
surroundings. They cannot escape simply because no one can. It is against this
backdrop that one must understand the plethora of “political songs” or
“protest songs” emerging from the youth who cannot pretend to remain
unaffected by the sheer intensity of negativity all around. In a sense, the genre of
political songs was always there, here as well as everywhere. John Lennon
found it important to imagine there was no heaven, a world without countries
and religion, where all the people lived in peace, forcing everyone to think
if music could ever have a greater purpose than send this message with this
kind of impact. In this country, the
resistance poets were sung during authoritarian rules with gusto and even by
the masters. The classicists think those masters did not feel committed to
any ideology and sung this poetry like any other. This is a little hard to
accept if you ever had a chance to hear Iqbal Bano, for example, sing Faiz
in a concert. Unfortunately, things
always remained bad for this country before they became worse. Thus the rise
of pop and rock music in the late eighties and early nineties had its share
of political songs and they continued to be made and sung fairly regularly
and heard with a lot of interest. But, in the last couple of
years, we have heard some really powerful songs which are no bland pleadings
for the youth to rise up. These are in the words of Nadeem Farooq Paracha,
“grittier, satirical and, unlike their old counterparts,..not sung by
heroes, but by anti-heroes”. They are getting heard by hundreds of
thousands of people. This is a land where there
still is heaven and hell, the latter literally let loose upon innocent
people, where there is religion and where there is no peace. Till we have a
better place than this to live, there will be dreamers, making music that
records what’s happening, that makes people live their lives with dignity
and calls for a better world.
overview The phenomenon of
“protest songs” of the pop and rock variety emerged in the late 1980s
and early 1990s when the popular bands of that time released a couple of
them as part of their music albums. The songs did get noticed for their
offbeat themes. In recent years, the trend
has caught on with a renewed vigour, though the current variety of
politically-motivated songs look different from their earlier counterparts:
these are mostly released as single tracks; rely less on the commercial
returns and more on the social media feedback (say YouTube hits) for their
success; and are a lot more irreverent and satirical in their treatment than
the earlier ones that were more positive and motivational. Artists and bands,
including Laal, Beygairat Brigade, Shahzad Roy, Topi Drama, and Shahvar Ali
Khan and Ali Gul Pir have all recorded music that is distinct in its subject
matter and is a refreshing break from the traditional love songs. Political music seems to
be a growing trend in today’s music scene but musicians’ personal
motivations may vary. How commercially viable are these songs is another
relevant question as is the yardstick called the “test of time”. For singer Ali Aftab Saeed
of Beygairat Brigade, the goal was not to bring about a revolution, though,
as he commented, “music does play a role as a catalyst.” The primary aim underlying
both “Aaloo Andey” and the recently released “Sab Paisay Ki Game Hai”,
was to provide an alternate opinion regarding the status quo. In Saeed’s
view, “The message we have projected in our songs may be right or wrong
but ultimately it is a non-traditionalist view.” Arshed Bhatti, the
lyricist of “Sab Paisay…”, as well as “Ham Charsi Bhangi Hain”
sung by Areib Azhar, believes in “daring” pursuits and breaking away
from prescribed norms. “My motivation premises on my understanding that
when faith divides, culture can unite; when hatred takes over collective
rationality, humour helps us to be human again. In Pakistan, it is not the
written word but the spoken one that can lead to a revolt. Ours is a society
that responds more animatedly to the oral.” Concerning this song,
Bhatti emphasised the power of slogans that are easy to narrate and relate
to, ones that ordinary people can own and use to effectively challenge
existing problems. “Sub Paisay Ki Game is our take on the political
economy of those transactions which are hindering our progress.” For Laal band, the cause
is one that musician Taimur Rahman is strongly committed to. “I have been
a political activist far longer than I have been a musician. When I was in
college I was inspired by Marxism and I joined Pakistan’s small but
significant Communist Party. Singing Faiz and Jalib, who were themselves
Communists, was then as natural as rain water. The cause I feel personally
committed to is the emancipation of the working class in Pakistan from the
chains of imperialism, capitalism, landlordism, and religious extremism. All
my music, political activism, and scholarship are dedicated to this singular
aim.” Band Topi Drama, which
recently released its new single “Khoon Hai”, centred on Shia target
killings in Pakistan, felt a moral responsibility to speak out against the
atrocities. “Khoon wasn’t a planned song based on an agenda. I wrote it
because I felt very personally responsible as a silent spectator,” said
guitarist and composer Arafat Mazhar. Vocalist Sohail Qureshi
sees the song as “a collective expression of guilt and mourning.” “If
it results in a call for action by even a single person, that would be
incredible, ”he said. The song’s refrain “There is blood on the hands
of all of us” comes against the backdrop of glaring images of brutality
inflicted on the Hazara community and Shias elsewhere in Pakistan,
juxtaposed with images of politicians and institutions, all of whom are
taking no action. For Shahvar Ali Khan, the
songwriter behind the single “No Saazish No Jang”, “being a Pakistani
or a South Asian today is a unique experience in itself. The paradox is that
while depression represses society, it also provides food for thought for an
artist — for all those naïve idealists who romance about a Utopian world.
I believe in speaking the language of the masses and of the common youth.”
On a personal level Khan
considers his entire life to have been an experience in pluralism and
coexistence — his parents belong to different religious sects and
ethnicities, while he has fond recollections of celebrating both Eid and
Diwali with his Indian dorm-mates while attending college in the US. Political songs, like
other modern music, rely as much on the images or video. The stark visual
quality of Aaloo Andey’s video, with the band members’ faces painted
with bright colours and harsh, satiric messages inscribed on the placards
they carried, was intrinsic to the song’s impact. But this particular
video’s heightened importance, said Ali Aftab Saeed, was due to the fact
that it was used as a medium to depict things and ideas that were not
included in the lyrics. In general, Saeed ascribes the most importance to
music, followed by lyrics, and lastly, to video. “The chords and melody
are what stick in people’s minds,” agrees Rahman. “In Paisay Ki Game, the
video and the song are a great fit right now but down the road, I feel this
song could yield different visual interpretations. So I see the song
surviving longer than the video,” said Bhatti. Some critics point to
political songs’ specificity to current sociopolitical conditions as an
obstacle in their ability to stand the test of time. Aaloo Andey, for
instance, made sharp, unambiguous references to events and people who may no
longer be as relevant a decade later. “The song highlighted specific
issues of its time, but that is a major reason for its popularity,”
responded Saeed. Paisay Ki Game, he feels, may be more lasting due to its
generic message. Taimur Rahman feels that
Laal’s lyrics have lasting significance. “I always work to connect poems
to contemporary issues. But those immediate issues are merely an
illustration of the broader socio-economic and philosophical problems
enunciated by the poets in my music.” Shahvar Ali Khan would
rather like the relevance of No Saazish No Jang to not sustain for too long!
Regarding the commercial
appeal and viability of this genre, artists have mixed opinions. Ali Aftab
Saeed does not consider it to be greatly “marketable”. “In Pakistan
the culture of paying money to attend concerts is not very prevalent, and
there aren’t many concerts as such. The younger generation that usually
pays for concerts prefers traditional love and pop songs to our kind of
music.” Rahman presents a
different perspective. “It definitely has commercial appeal. I’m bored
of listening to the same kind of droning describing the features of the
opposite gender or ranting about lost love. I think the public is as well.
One hit wonder bands on the internet have already shown what a huge demand
there is for something more edgy, interesting and relevant.” Finally, are musicians
genuinely committed to the causes they sing about or is it a shortcut to
fame and large numbers of YouTube hits? Bhatti seems more convinced by the
former. “Anger and protest are embedded in the social, and such music
seeks social impact. These songs are not aiming for direct economic gains. I
think they are a reflection of our times and they will grow both
horizontally and vertically.” caption Making a clear statement. caption Chief suspect. caption On the same page.
Local
relevance Despite the
bowdlerisation of critical canons in recent times, a differentiation can
still be made between art with a capital A and its technical constituents.
The urge or the insistence to use art or artistic devices to popularise or
create acceptance of an idea, a historical episode
or a movement has always been pressing. Religions have used it and
so has politics and these days it is being used by the marketing sectors to
create willingness on the part of the consumer to exercise their spending
options on the product advertised. Art is, thus, reduced to being a
handmaiden to all else. It becomes a means; a device to sell the idea. The
next question that arises — does the means remain a means or
transcends to achieve an autonomous existence? Popularity is considered
to be the crucial benchmark for passing a judgment on any expression of art.
If it is the performing arts then the nature of its existence in time
determines that the response be instant and immediate. If a film is released
and does not do well on its first run, it is considered to be a box office
disaster which no subsequent successful rerun can undo. Similarly, with the
release of a music number the best seller’s charts determines how well it
has done and whether it has been classified as a success or not. One formula for instant
appeal in such cases whether in making a film, composing a song, or writing
a poem is topicality, something that is making the headlines every day. In
the past few years, Pakistani society has been marred by electricity
shortages, poor governance, corruption scandals, and all kinds of terrorism
so the artistes conveniently can pick on any of these themes or topics to
bombast the powers that be and create sensational stuff which should have
all the qualifications of daring and truthful criticism as if speaking the
voice of the people at large. There has always been a
running debate about what is topical and what is relevant. The two may appear to be
mutually exclusive but there might be a relationship between the two — the
kind of relationship that exists between a door and a room. Topicality could
be the huge and attractive bill boards that catch the attention of the
viewer who may already be preoccupied with the issue, subject or the image
but then it should lead to something that is more intrinsic and concerns
larger human issues or dilemmas. Thinkers have grappled
with this central problem and have tried to understand in its entirety but
due to the abstract nature on how to draw a line between something that
exists for its own sake in itself and something that exists for itself. Probably, it can be
assumed that art always reflects basic human concern, some core issue, only
the approach rests in local habitation and a name. Perhaps the only criteria
for assessment could be time or history. If the work in any medium
withstands the vicissitudes of time and can still be referred
to in another age then it has outgrown the limitation imposed on it
by its own time and space. Any work should have the potential to speak at
different levels and be multilayered. Only the curiosity of the viewer or
listener should open itself up to more than one level of interpretation. Imposing one idea,
bandying one system or drumbeating one ideology is the prerequisite
of tyranny. The overriding system or ideology of an age may seem very
righteous but could contain the seeds of something sinister. The
multilayered interpretation of what is being said or heard can create the
necessary doubt, ambivalence or ambiguity. This could be one way of keeping
man away from playing god. Living on the high street
of consumerism, everything is up for sale and advertising is the instrument
of doing so. In such an age, art can easily be viewed in the same context
and if it does not sell an idea, a value or an ideology, and if it is not
employed in creating the necessary ambience that all is possible and
instantly realisable then it fails to achieve its purpose. To define so
fully, the purpose of art too is reflective of the tyranny embedded in the
finality of an idea, a system or ideology. caption My way of saying it.
interview The News on
Sunday: How do you look at the genre of political songs as it has evolved
over the last twenty years, especially the recent surge of songs that are
being released on Youtube, etc? Within this broad genre, how do you
categorise them? Nadeem Farooq Paracha:
Political songs, in the local pop music context, have a rather short
history. They basically began to appear some time in the late 1980s and
early 1990s and were mainly associated with bands like Junoon, Jazba and a
few others — even though many other acts, including the Vital Signs,
occasionally ventured into this territory as well. The so-called political
pop or rock songs in that era were mostly a mixture of certain patriotic
clichés and symbolism and pleas to ‘wake up’ about something or the
other. These songs were not exactly pointed and remained largely indirect. Some of the finest of that
era were Junoon’s Talaash, Jazba’s Jago and Vital Signs’ Aisa Na Ho. However, what has been
going around these days as political pop in Pakistan is quite different than
the political songs of the 1990s. These days such songs are not only more
blatant and direct but bank more on irreverent humour and satire, and
don’t mind exhibiting cynicism. Beygairat Brigade, Ali Gul
Pir, even Shahzad Roy come to mind along with a number of others who’ve
been using social media to exhibit their stuff. Thus, today’s political
songs are grittier, satirical and unlike their old counterparts, they are
not being sung by heroes, but by anti-heroes. TNS: Do you think this is
a committed response of our youth to the deteriorating political situation
or short cut to quick fame? NFP: Well, I think, it’s
a blend of both. Of course, these guys would love to get famous but this
fame is different than the ones enjoyed by the musicians of the 1990s. These
guys are hardly making any money. That’s why I also
believe theirs is an ideological response as well. Well, maybe that’s a
pretty absolute word to use, but like each and every young Pakistani, these
guys too are affected by what has been going in the country. But, as I said, most of
today’s musicians in this context are striking anti-heroic poses. This is
a good thing because this way they can be more irreverent and ask harsher
questions about the military, the mullah, the politicians and even the
populist media. TNS: One criticism these
songs face is their place in time and that they may not survive the test of
time? Do you think they should be judged according to the classical
yardstick or is that unfair to do so? NFP: Songs like these have
to be about the time they are being made in. But there are so many
socio-political issues in this country that have hung around our collective
necks for decades and they are likely to remain there for another few
decades. So, I don’t see these songs dating so badly. Also, the music bit, or
the song’s melody, if it is catchy and of good quality, might still be
enjoyed in the future. TNS: Related to this
earlier question, it is also said that people like Iqbal Bano were only
committed to the craft of music and not any political ideology per se and
yet they sung Faiz, etc. wonderfully. Must a singer adhere to an ideology? NFP: No, not necessarily.
But when Bano sang Faiz, one automatically assumed that she believed in what
the poet was saying. I’m sure if, say, conservative writers like Nasim
Hijazi was a poet as well, I doubt Bano, or for that matter Tina Sani, would
have sung him. TNS: The political songs,
like most music in modern times, are an interplay of music, lyrics and
video. How would you place all three in order of importance? Will the songs
survive minus the video? NFP: Songs will always be
bigger than the videos. Videos are a novelty that wears off, but the song
remains. The melody, the vocals and the lyrics are supreme. TNS: You gave Aloo Andey a
positive review. How does that song look like in retrospect? Was it an
attempt to delve into something totally new? NFP: Absolutely, it was
one of the first concrete attempts by a group of young, urban Pakistani lads
to create an alternative narrative about what the Pakistani politics and
society have been facing in the last many years. Beygairat Brigade did not
strike a self-righteous, self-important pose and go la la la about unity,
faith and discipline. They went la la la about the questionable role of the
military, corrupt politicians, the over-active judiciary and the society’s
religious biases in the mess called Pakistan. TNS: What do you think of
bands coming on stage and performing at political jalsas (PTI Lahore)? Is
that a natural conclusion of the revolutionary songs of this variety? NFP: It is wonderful,
really. Kudos to Khan and his team to have come up with this idea. And, no,
I won’t call the songs played at PTI’s rallies revolutionary, but they
are certainly being sung to meet certain political ends. The interview was
conducted via email
Looking
back in protest In his book, 33
Revolutions Per Minute, that deals with the history of protest songs in the
Western world, Dorian Lynskey puts forth a definition: “a protest song is
a song that addresses a political issue in a way which aligns itself with
the underdog.” Music like the visual arts
has always been a form that lends itself splendidly well to any kind of
protest or propaganda. A simple reason for this is because of the form
itself: a three minute song can and has left a lasting effect on many a
person and on a deeper visceral level because now, it attacks a viewer with
sound, word and image. The history of protest
songs in Pakistan seems to have started soon after the country’s birth,
but for the purpose of this article, the protest song in popular music rears
its head in 1992, on the album Vital Signs 2. The song Mera Dil Nahi sounds
like a love song, its extremely upbeat, with a driving keyboard part, but
the fact is that Mera Dil Nahi is also about the Soviet-Afghan war and more
pointedly about the US involvement through Pakistan. 1993 is the year when
Jazba releases its Kashmir anthem Jago and Junoon releases Talaash which is
censored and eventually banned from state TV and radio and from then on the
protest song actually hasn’t really looked back. A rather incomplete list
that includes Sona Chahta Hoon by Najam Sheraz (1995), Mr. Fraudiay by Awaz
(1996), Chal Rein De by Sajjad Ali (2006), Hungami Haalaat by Atif Aslam
(2007), Ready To Die by Coven (2008), Laga Reh by Shahzad Roy (2008), and
Bum Paata by Ali Azmat (2010), if nothing else shows how regular the protest
has been. 2013 has meant that the
traditional way of spreading music: through promotion, an album with at
least 12 songs, live performance, etc has totally been thrown out the
window. Musicians can and are reaching through to an audience much faster
through social media and sites like SoundCloud, banned Youtube have made the
musician’s ultimate dream come true: of cutting through any middlemen and
going directly to the audience. On top of this, the country’s tremulous
daily existence means protest songs have become hot, heavy, and faster in
coming. This raises one question,
always. What will last and what won’t. In one sense, everything will and
does; as they say what is done is history. This is due to the simple fact
that if a hundred years from now a determined social critic will have to
chart the history of protest in music in Pakistan, there is a chance that he
or she might stumble on the year 1992 or even earlier. The other response is
concerned with musical form itself. In this case, Lynskey’s comparison
between Neil Young and John Lennon is a shrewd and intelligent observation
where he discusses Neil Young’s response to the Kent State killings in
1970, Ohio, performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, as a musical as
well as a lyrical “masterpiece” of “fury, grief and topical
precision.” He then just as persuasively describes John Lennon and the
Plastic Ono Band’s excursion into left-wing topical song two years later
in Some Time in New York City as “sheer failure.” Lynskey writes that Young,
until then the least politically minded member of Crosby, Stills, Nash and
Young, could write a political song as powerful as Ohio remains hard to
grasp, although it does support the idea that, in art, craft and courage
surpasses ideology. Lennon’s failure,
though, shows that attempting to compose political music can defeat even a
supremely gifted songwriter. According to Lynskey, Lennon’s puzzling,
half-baked politics, along with a more general political bewilderment after
1970, were at fault. Another, simpler explanation is that as Lennon became
more of a doctrinaire “smash the state” radical, his writing turned into
puerile propaganda. caption Talk to my hand.
Taking their cue
from Ali Azmat’s highly charged ‘Bum paata,’ the barely one-single-old
Sufi-rock band Badnaam are ready to launch their first protest song, funnily
titled ‘Ek zaalim sab pe bhaari’ (the reference in the line is too
obvious!). Much as it marks a musical departure for the band that came to
the fore early last year with ‘Allah hoo,’ a paean to transcendental
love, it “isn’t in any way low on lyrical quality,” insists Ahmed
Jilani, the band’s lead vocalist and songwriter, also an eager reader of
Rumi. Jilani is obviously
hinting at the kind of “street lingo” the pop artists of today are
becoming increasingly obsessed with. Consider Ali Gul Pir’s ‘Waderay ka
beta’ and Ali Aftab Saeed (of Beygairat Brigade)’s ‘Aaloo anday,’
both of which became the internet generation’s anthems recently, what with
their catchy melodies and a humourous look at the many ailments plaguing our
society. Earlier, Shahzad Roy urged the common man not to lose heart in the
face of social injustices and to continue on, in his trendsetting ‘Laga
reh.’ All these songs attracted limelight, especially for their use of
everyday language — a heady mix of Punjabi, Urdu and (sometimes) American
slang, spiced up with expletives. The last ingredient is mostly seen as
optional and depends on how strong the message of the song is. In rapper Faris Shafi’s
case, for instance, it got a tad too strong. A satirical comment on the
miseries of the common man, Shafi’s ‘Awaam the cool’ (released in
2012) has him spewing venom — literally — in provocative terms that
wouldn’t go down well with the censors if the song was to be aired on a
mainstream TV or radio channel. (For the present, it is confined to the
web). Shafi makes an
unapologetic use of swear words — “saalay” and “harami”
(bastards), and “kuttay” (dogs) feature predominantly in the song —
and a street-smart, chiefly-boys language (the English translation of one of
his lines would be, “NATO doesn’t give a f*&@ about the nation”). Here, he is fully helped
by rap’s potential for detailed storytelling. In a six-and-half minutes
long freestyle, Shafi narrates the plight of the poor masses, their
exploitation at the hands of the gangsters (“Honda hi Honda hai”) as
well as the politically influential elite, loadshedding, terrorist attacks,
“mazhab ke maslay/ghazab ke jalsay” (religious issues/spectacular
political rallies), “beymaari” (disease) and “sailaab” (flash
floods), and practically everything under the sun. And, he does so with an
untiring wit and bite: “Pakistan ko lag gae
lassan ke tarrkey” Shafi also takes a poetic
license here and there: such as “Pakistan vaar pe tayyar hai,” meaning,
perhaps, that Pakistan is in a state of war. In their new song, Badnaam
coins “daaghi” (scarred), as opposed to ‘daaghdaar’. These songwriters are also
guilty of being unnecessarily obscene. At one place, Gul Pir’s
‘wadera’ (feudal lord) makes a glorious declaration, “Itna ameer ke
padd me niklay paisa/abhi dikhata hun…(farts)… kaisa?” Ali Azmat comes to the
defence of the new breed of songwriters/musicians, saying that language is
“an ever evolving phenomenon.” But he is quick to add, “gaalian (swear
words) etc may work sometime, but not every time. “You can be expressive
without being explicit. If you want to become a household name, you’ve got
to play it smart.” The country’s original
rocker says, “Earlier, we also sang topical numbers — songs that were
socially relevant — but these weren’t in this kind of a commonplace,
nonliterary language. We would sing poets like Iqbal and Faiz. “The new lot [of
musicians] is going for it, without realising that language has become a
hotchpotch in their hands.” Faris Shafi puts it down
to “an extension of the kind of language me and my friends would speak at
any given time; it’s our most natural expression.” Interestingly, Azmat
one-upped them all in ‘Bum paata’ (2010), when he soundtracked the
situation of the country in the wake of terrorist attacks, in his inimitable
(black) humour: “Bum bum paata Kadi Lahore, Karachi, teh
kadi Fata Ajj jindri ho gai bo kata”
(The bomb explodes/at times in Lahore, at times in Karachi or Fata/today,
lives were lost as kites are pulled down mid-air) The song, which had an
equally hilarious video, was penned by Azmat together with his Chicago-based
friend Yawar Mian. Their next, titled ‘Babu bhai banna mujhe star hai,’
is also composed in the same genre. caption Exploding big time. caption Flaunting it, wadera-style.
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