These past few weeks I’ve been grappling with exactly what Sepia Mutiny has meant to me in the past six years I’ve written for the site and have been playing musical montages in my head of my favorite moments. Six years – longer than any job or relationship I’ve ever had. This site provided a much needed space to dialogue and develop the South Asian American identity and, in many ways, set the benchmark with how the community voiced ourselves. I always approached blogging on this site with three things in mind – 1) write about the Desi-American experience, the narrative I was yearning for, 2) a 1:1 ratio of pop to politics posts, and 3) find the marginalized Desis and give them space. And of course – the self pep talk before every remotely Muslim post - “Fuck all the trolling Islamophobic haters – as long as they’re commenting, there’s an important reason to keep blogging.” There was always that.

To commemorate – let’s list, shall we? So here we go. My top ten most influential moments here in the Sepia Mutiny bunkers…

1. Sepia Destiny: Oh, the trials and tribulations of being a single Desi girl with dating woes and having it all laid out in blogs. Remember the Dating While Desi rules? And wondering if Dating While Desi Bradley Effect of if Obama would increase the dating pool? These posts were our most commented on the site and clearly a very important issue to many of us. Though we always had high hopes of setting up a Sepia Destiny dating tab, it never came to fruition. Luckily, many of you didn’t wait for the tab to find SM love, myself included. Thank you, Sepia Mutiny for making dating life all that much more thrilling.

2. Gaza: Is Palestine a Desi issue? To me, the connection was immediate – but how to write about it? I hit the streets for the protests, interviewing every Desi person I saw and did it again at the rally in front of the Israel Embassy after the flotilla’s were attacked. In an American world where USINPAC and AIPAC are working in coordination to promote an Indian-Israeli alliance at the Capitol – I found it even more important to push this counter-narrative out there on SM’s pages. Especially after this Bollywood dancing missile promo video. Vijay Prashad’s Uncle Swami book coming out in June has a detailed analysis, but sadly my book review won’t be on these pages.

3. Ami Bera: He folded in to returning $250 of donations from CAIR-Sacramento Executive Director, thanks to pressure from his opponent Dan Lungren during the 2010 elections. My blog post sparked an interesting dialogue between readers, donors and the candidate himself - and even led to his having to return donations from people wanting their money back. Ami Bera is at it again, running in this fall’s election. But this time his race is highly supported by the Democratic Party big shots. Let’s just hope he doesn’t fold to Lungren again.

4. Edison, NJ: Joel Stein’s article caused a ruckus in our bunker – was it racist or was calling it racist too much? I tied it to The Last Airbender and called it racist – but others disagreed.

5. Bridget McCain: During the 2008 election John McCain’s Bangladeshi adoptee daughter hit the campaign trail, and I wrote a letter to her. The comments were fierce to say the least and generated a dialogue that I will never forget.

6. IndiCorps: This had to be one of the larger recent issues that totally split the Desi progressive community in two. You either sided w/ Vijay Prashad who “called out” Sonal Shah on aligning herself with the VHP or you sided with Indicorps family. I didn’t write about this, but Amardeep’s post, Ennis’ post, and Amardeep’s second post did cause a lot of ruckus both within the bunker and within the community. With ten year anniversary of the Gujarat riots around the corner, I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ve heard of it.

7. Queerness: One of the things I’ve completely enjoyed about writing on Sepia Mutiny the amount of coverage that was given to the queer community. There were the marches on Pioneer Blvd., Gay Pride in NYC, coming out stories, interviews with Prerna Lal and Sikh Knowledge, and the Nani supporting Proposition 8.

8. Bone Marrow Donation: The Mutiny has been featuring stories of bone marrow donors needed for the past few years – and has contributed to the significant increase to the South Asian donor pool. Most recently, Amit Gupta’s story and his viral social media campaign generated a 10/10 donor bone marrow donor match.

9: Hate-crimes: There have been so many hate crimes in the community over the years at Sepia Mutiny. Some were in post 9/11 hate and others were driven by islamophobic fear. There was the monument in Arizona that wanted to remove Balbir Singh Sodi off of the 9/11 monument, Kamal Uddin, Satender Singh, the Elk Grove murders, and the controversial fake hate-crime of Aisha Khan.

10: Voting: Of course, voting. What drew me to these pages of Sepia Mutiny was what drew me to start South Asian American Voting Youth – to empower the community to have a political voice. After ALL of my posts on voting, posts on Obama, and posts on south asian candidates – I hope that you all walk away a bit more empowered.

Thank you. Thank you to Abhi for inviting me to be a guest blogger way back in 2006 and for not kicking me out of the bunker. Thank you to all the dear bloggers who gchatted with me through ideas, who edited my posts at all hours of the night and who inspired me to keep writing. Thank you to the fabulous readers and commenters and lurkers who made this experience a constant learning and growing experience. Thank you to all of you who took the time to email me personally, talk to me at a meetup or voiced encouragement in person – each of you helped me onto this journey that I’m on today, and I’m a much better person for it.

As for where you can find me now… you’ll always be able to find me tweeting away @TazzyStar or on my personal blog at Say What?. You can find my tumblr site where I curate images of the South Asian American diaspora Mutinous MindState, and more infrequently at the Taqwacore Webzine. Finally, you can read one of my stories in Love, Inshallah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women. As for the future, time will always tell. I’ll keep you posted.

Oh, and one more song. For old times sake.

Ami Acshi.

Here we are in the last week of Sepia Mutiny. On these pages as a reader, I’ve discovered some of my favorite songs and as a writer, I’ve gotten to interview some of the most amazing people. I’ve loved discovering new Desi music and examining musicians exploration of hyphenated identities through lyric, music and movement.

Since I love lists – what better way to remember this then… a Top Ten Favorite Mutinous Music Moments.

1. M.I.A.- Maya has graced the pages of our site an innumerable amount of times – 100 posts to be exact. From her first “galang”, to her so-called retirement, to a pregger M.I.A. singing at the Grammy Awards with A.R. Rahman. She was the first things that drew me as a reader to the pages of the Mutiny. In the past 8 years peoples opinions of her may have waned, but she definitely has made her mark
2. Das Racist – Despite Abhi’s first post where he made his firesauce prediction that Pizza Hut, Taco Bell was going to be a Desi fave, could we have suspected these guys would have exploded the way they did? They’ve gone from a YouTube sensation to dropping Shut Up, Dude & Sit Down, Man & Relax to selling out shows as an international music sensation. But by far, PhillyGrrl’s interviews Part 1 & Part 2 were my most favorite interviews to grace these pages.
3. Vijay Iyer – He’s gone from Still Life with Commentator in 2006 to the #1 Jazz Album of the year IN 2010 for Historicity. Sugi’s interview with Vijay is one of the sweetest interviews Part 1 & Part 2.
4. The Kominas – Who would have known when I first blogged about these guys in 2006, that my life as a blogger would get so intimately intertwined w/ this band and the taqwacore scene? My first interview with Basim Usmani goes down as one of my favorites. Following the growth if this band personally has been epic to say the least, whether following them on cross country TaqwaTour or as my “camera crew” at Sundance for my Aamir Khan interview. Epic, indeed.
5. DJ Rekha – the infamous and legendary, we’ve talked about Rekha since she smacked Daler Mehndi down. Whether Basement Bhangra (dance party AND CD) or DJing at the White House Easter Egg Hunt. There’s a reason why she’s one of my Desi Women of the Decade.
6. Mandeep Sethi – He came aisee taisee out of nowhere and is a hip hop artist, filmmaker, producer, South Asian musical networker collaborating w/ everyone and is now in India establishing the first Indian B-Boy crew, SlumGods. All before hitting the age of 24, of course.
7. Sikh Knowledge – A queer Canadian Sikh dancehall beat-making MC and producer, my interview with him is one of my proudest SM moments. Baas.
8. Goldspot – These alterna pop boys have been on our pages and a Phillygrrl and Abhi favorite, from 2006 to the 2011 KCRW live performance. A golden find.
9. Red Baraat – A baraat brass band? When I first met Brooklynwallah and heard about his band, I never suspected I’d become as big of a fan of it as I did. The interview w/ Sonny and Sunny made me want to Chaal, Baby.
10. Penn Masala – The longest running Desi A Capella group from UPenn, they have been training generations of swooners and it even landed then in the White House. 

So there you have it – my top favorite musical moments of Sepia Mutiny, though there are many more interviews I conducted that I wish I could have included in this list. But these are just my personal faves – I’m sure you all must have your favorites too! Drop them in the comments. It has been an absolute pleasure finding music for the mutiny.

The song is by an MC I’m really surprised hasn’t been covered by the Mutiny before. Brooklyn Shanti, a Bengali DJ coming outta…. well … Brooklyn,  I heard about via Mandeep Sethi, my connection to all the latest in Desi hip-hop. Brooklyn Shanti is ridiculously prolific – his website and his bandcamp have tons of songs available for download and he’ll be coming out with an album in the next couple of months. Of course, I have an affinity for all things Bengali, and I absolutely instantly fell in love when I heard his Bangla lyric-ed song Rani, Rani.

His theme song’s not so bad either. Keep an eye on this guy – Brooklyn Shanti’s going to be going far with these skills.

Check out his bandcamp discography – if you like the above songs, I’m sure you’ll like what else he has. You can download his full album from June 2011 for free right here: Brookylin Circa 2012

I hope you’ve enjoyed the #MusicMonday’s at Sepia Mutiny these past couple of years – I started them because I wanted to have some content to provide for you on a weekly basis. After a while though, it became more of a scavenger hunt and a game to find the songs I would actually listen to on my iPod. I’ve found and befriended many of the artists profiled on these pages – and I’m hoping that my fantastical dream of Alterna-Desi Music Fest on the So Cal desert of Bombay Beach with these bands will happen some day. Some day…

NEW TIME: 2:30pm – 6:30pm

NEW LOCATION: The Liberties Bar, 998 Guerrero Street  San Francisco, CA 94110

++++

What’s that you say? It’s the end of a mutinous era and you never even made it to a Sepia Mutiny Meetup? Rajni the Monkey went wild in the bunker once he heard this news and is now throwing poop at your computer screen. But ask and The Mutiny delivers – at least for the next 15 days till the April 1st door slam. ANNA revived the 55 Friday because of this tweet and hell, thanks to this forlorn tweet from @YungCoconut and @AmericanTurban, I will do the same.

Join Manish, Vinod, Pavani and myself for the Cali swagest meetup of your mutinous lifetime in San Francisco on Saturday March 31st. We know that you Alterna-Desi types have already bought your tickets to the 8th annual Yoni Ki Baat performance. “Yoni Ki heh…?” you ask? Desi, please.

South Asian Sisters are back again to present another brand new script with funny, touching, sensational, and thought-provoking raw performances submitted by South Asian women across the country! [southasiansisters]

For more info and to purchase tickets to the March 31st & April 1st San Francisco Yoni Ki Baat shows, please check out their site here.

As for the LAST CHANCE AT GOING TO A SEPIA MUTINY MEETUP…

• New Time: 2:30pm – 6:30pm
• Date: Saturday, March 31st, 2012
• New Location: The Liberties Bar, 998 Guerrero Street  San Francisco, CA 94110
• Facebook Event Page Right Here

Please comment below if you will be able to make it! Since this is the last meetup – EVER – I highly suggest out-of-towners fly into SF for a Cesar Chavez long weekend of Mutinous fun. If you have a bar/lounge suggestion (that is open at 4:30pm) do let me know and we can change the local, as long as we keep it in The Mission. And if you can’t come to the meetup but want to keep in touch - you can always find us on twitter, too.

It’s not goodbye – it’s just a farewell, for now. I’ll see y’all on the internet flip side and by that I mean IRL.

It should be no surprise by now where the largest populations of South Asians are.  According to the report, metropolitan areas with the largest South Asian populations are New York City, Chicago, Washington DC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco-Oakland and in over the past ten years, the Washington DC metropolitan area overtook the Los Angeles metropolitan area as the area with the third largest South Asian population.

But to me what was surprising to see is where exactly the growing South Asian populations live (as seen in the map above). The South Asian population grew the most in Charlotte, NC, increasing 187% over the past ten years. This was followed by Phoenix; Richmond VA; Raleigh, NC, San Antonio, Seattle, and Stockton, CA; Jacksonville, FL; Harrisburg, PA; and Las Vegas. Among the ten fastest growing South Asian metropolitan areas, only the Seattle and Phoenix metropolitan areas had more than 30,000 South Asians in 2010, while the smallest of the top 10 fastest growing metropolitan areas was the Harrisburg, PA metropolitan area with close to 6,500 South Asians. These are all regions without a significant history of South Asian American migration and I wonder what has happened in these regions that led to such a rapid growth in these cities.

And of course, as the electoral geek of Sepia Mutiny (sorry Abhi), I was most impressed by the new data reflecting the updated voting power of the South Asian community.

• South Asians are becoming an increasingly powerful segment of the American electorate – with U.S. citizens of voting age increasing between 100% and 414% since 2000.
• The population of non-U.S. citizens of voting age has also increased since 2000. While not currently eligible to vote, this population includes green card holders who may become U.S. citizens in the future and will add to the growing electorate.

In addition to the data listed above, there are the additional counties that now have South Asian bilingual needs as reported on the APALC report I blogged about here.

• Los Angeles County, California – Asian-Indian
• Cook County, Illinois (Chicago) – Asian-Indian
• Queens County, New York – Asian-Indian
• Hamtramck City, Michigan – Bangladeshi

To me, this civic engagement data is particularly important because despite this incredible growth in voting population in the South Asian community, there still does not exist one civic engagement/electoral organization building on the power of these voters. We have South Asian candidates running for office, people donating a ton of money to them via PACs, Indian-American lobbying organizations and policy advocacy organizations. But since South Asian American Voting Youth dissolved in 2008, there hasn’t been another national organization to capitalize on this non-partisan political niche. With the 2012 elections right around the corner and such an incredible growth in South Asian voting and non-voting populations, it’s time that the community gets galvanized to build upon these numbers. And it’s time for the South Asian community to fund and support these community efforts.

Please check out the report from SAALT & AAF by clicking on this link and spread the report out to key stakeholders that will be interested in these demographic numbers. Though a great effort, I’m interested to see how else the South Asian community data disaggregated by regions will look like and what else that data will tell us, particularly around multilingual, class, and income levels. If you are working on crunching the Census data for the Desi community, please do send it my way!

But you don’t have to take my word for it – the album Feel Free is available … well, for free. So download it for free now!  

Two things I love about Spills. First, I love that he was part of an acoustic dub/hip hop duo called Two Dirty Desis. And the second is this:

For those who want to delve further into his creative mind, Feel Free Ableton session files will be available to be used in any way, shape or form on February 21, 2012. On his decision to release the Ableton files, Spills remarked:

“Honestly, I would have never even thought to give away ALL the session files… some would say a hip hop producer is only as good as his samples and synths. But that whole Internet black out thing to protest government and corporate censorship really inspired me – made me realize that we’re only as powerful as our connections to each other. So everyone should feel free to do with this project whatever they want … go nuts.”

You heard him. Go nuts!

…a member of M.I.A.’s camp, speaking Sunday night from the Super Bowl host city of Indianapolis, said M.I.A. was struck with “a case of adrenaline.” “She wasn’t thinking,” said the source, who requested anonymity but was with the artist at Lucas Oil Stadium. “It wasn’t any kind of statement. She was caught in the moment and she’s incredibly sorry.” [link]

So, it wasn’t a political statement – she was caught in the moment. She has yet to issue an actual apology. The song itself, as I mentioned before, is pretty lame and a brown middle finger was the highlight of that tune. The full SuperBowl halftime show was, on the other hand, pretty awe inducing.

As for M.I.A. and her brown finger. Well, everyone is stumbling to point the blame finger at someone else.

NBC has apologized for airing footage of M.I.A. flipping off the cameras while delivering the line “I don’t give a shit” during Madonna‘s Super Bowl halftime show. “The NFL hired the talent and produced the halftime show,” NBC said in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter. “Our system was late to obscure the inappropriate gesture and we apologize to our viewers.”

The NFL have also issued an apology for the incident, but placed the blame on NBC’s censors. “There was a failure in NBC’s delay system,” spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement. “The obscene gesture in the performance was completely inappropriate, very disappointing, and we apologize to our fans.” [link]

How bad was it? Compared to Janet Jackson’s flash or the controversial kiss between Madonna and Brittany Spears, I’d say pretty insignificant. And compared to the misogynistic SuperBowl commercials, I’d say it was refreshing to have M.I.A.’s rebellious voice (finger?) heard (seen?). I like what Sasha had to say about it:

Fine, it may not be legal to flip the bird on television, but that’s simply a remnant of the fifties we haven’t shaken. Unless somebody was handing out Xanax with the foam fingers, Lucas Oil Stadium was ringing with the music of profanities last night. More to the point, television viewers were submitted to ad after ad that likened women—negatively—to sofas, cars, and candy. Mr. Winter didn’t have anything to say about that, so I’d like to raise both of my middle fingers to him and anyone who thinks profanity is somehow more harmful to our children than images of violence and misogyny. [link]

M.I.A. Flipping the Camera and Back Up Dancers with Their Crotches Up

The song is great, but I absolutely LOVE this video – if only because I can imagine Saudi women blasting this rebellious song as they drive unlawfully through the desert. The stunts are pretty legit and gritty without the Hollywood flair too. I feel as if “Bad Girls” skips over Vicki Leex mixtape and goes back to the world orientalist flavor of the Kala days of M.I.A.. I loved the Kala days.

The video, directed by Romain Gavras (see: M.I.A.’s “Born Free”) was shot in Ouarzazate, Morocco, and premiered exclusively on VICE’s new music channel Noisey. The short features daring car stunts that had M.I.A. terrified the entire time.[huffpost]

“It was dope to have so many people from so many different backgrounds speaking so many different languages come together to create something that we believed in,” says M.I.A about the video. “I thought I was gonna die on the shoot when I saw the drifting.  It was a four day shoot so everyone was on edge the whole time specifically ME when I had to do bluesteel singing to the camera while the cars did doughnuts on the wet road ten feet away. In my mind I was thinking how I was gonna deliver the video to Vice with no legs.” [bizjournals]

But, yo… this track that just premiered with Madonna and Nicki Minaj though leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They dress Nicki and MIA to be cheerleaders and give them a two line rap? And what’s with the blonde wigs to make them look like Madonna/Marilyn? Oh so bad. Video after the jump.

So what do you think? Is this M.I.A.’s swansong or a comeback?

Remember Amit Gupta? He was diagnosed with Leukimia in September 2011 and thus began the largest social media driven internet friendly bone marrow donor recruitment campaign we’ve seen to date. He has something to share today.

… After over 100 drives organized by friends, family, and strangers, celebrity call-outs, a bazillion reblogs (7000+!), tweets, and Facebook posts, press, fundraising and international drives organized by tireless friends, and a couple painful false starts, I’ve got a 10/10 matched donor! You all literally helped save my life. (And the lives of many others.) [amitgupta]

I am stunned by this good news! As we’ve blogged before, South Asians have a 1 in 20,000 chance of finding a donor match and to find a perfect match is even more of a slim chance. This is one of those circumstances that highlights how social media campaigns can turn into real life successes! Of course, Amit still has a battle ahead of him.

Tomorrow, I’ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks.

First I’ll get a second Hickman line to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I’m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try and eradicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process, the immune system I was born with, and my body’s ability to make blood, are destroyed.

Next Friday, I get my donor’s stem cells by IV. I start on immunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I’ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I’ve no immune system, so I’m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world.

Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor’s DNA, not my own. [amitgupta]

I am reminded of Sameer who also had a 10/10 donor match – but unfortunately suffered from complications from the transfer. Amit has a tough battle ahead of him, but he has a large community that is rooting and praying for him. Good luck!

Prominent Queens-bred rapper Himanshu Suri is adding his voice to the contentious redistricting debate, joining the board of directors of SEVA, a Richmond Hill-based immigrant rights group.

Suri’s childhood friend, Ali Najmi works for SEVA and introduced him to Gurpal Singh, one of the founders of the group and also a music producer. Within two hours of meeting one another, Singh and Suri were tinkering with tracks and discussing local politics. SEVA has an “army” of volunteers, Singh said, but Suri adds some much needed star power to the organization. [link]

Himanshu is at a SEVA community meeting performing right now (Monday night). It just so happens that his solo album titled after his very popular tumblr site Nehru Jackets also just dropped online on SEVA‘s website (thx for the tip, Pardon My Hindi!). For your #MusicMonday pleasure, you can find the link to the download here.

Redistricting is a huge issue these days, particularly since the Census 2010 results are now out, we now know where communities are clustering, particularly those of common interests, race and ethnicity. By splitting up communities of color in the drawing up of new borders around precincts, you are essentially dividing the power the community holds. In SEVA‘s case, they are fighting to keep together the political voice of the immigrant largely South Asian community in Queens.

“Redistricting in New York is such an uphill battle for communities that are basically on the outside of the political establishment, so we needed something to raise awareness about the issue and that something is his celebrity status,” Mr. Najmi said of Mr. Suri. “The idea that we could release  a mixtape that was attached to a redistricting campaign was just perfect to me.” Currently, the neighborhoods of Richmond Hill, Bellerose and Floral Park are all subdivided into multiple legislative districts. SEVA wants to see each neighborhood get its own, unified district when the new lines are drawn. [politickearney]

I commend Himanshu for lending his star power for a very important issue and for joining the leadership of an organization that serves the community he came from. I’m looking forward to seeing what other collaborations this potentially creates!