When did you know that you wanted to sing? After I finished school at Lahore, I started college, but it just didn’t feel right. I had a strange feeling that there had to be something more exciting to do in life. I had always loved music, because of my parents’ love for music and because of the music culture in Lahore. But there were no musical schools in Pakistan, which was kind of annoying.

Now your parents must be pretty cool, to let you come to America and pursue your music. Was there ever a “No beta, don’t do this” moment? It’s such a stereotypically unstable profession. So they always have a “Oh god, why did we let you do this” attitude. But I think secretly they’re excited because they both have great voices themselves and a love for music. In 2003, I made my dad sit down and listen to a cover I did of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and he became really quiet. That was when he started to take  my music seriously.

How much of a music foundation did you have in Pakistan and how was that supplemented in Berklee? I didn’t really have much of a chance to study music in Pakistan. I would love to set aside three or four years to go back home to Pakistan and get some classical training, but I haven’t been able to do that. I have gone back and apprenticed with local Lahori singers. It’s quite hard, they’re very traditional. It all depends on who exactly is teaching you music. Styles vary from teacher to teacher. Whereas over here, it’s very straightforward and standard. You learn European music theory. You learn jazz arrangements. You learn orchestral arrangements. They give you all the information and tell you, “Do what you want to do with it.” Over there it’s much more fluid.

Were you a musical child? My father would have a musical teacher and instrumentalists come by on the weekends for fun and I would be glued to him. Then they would host these musharas for their friends and I loved them. Musharas go on until four or five in the morning. I would be fully focused and I would listen very carefully. All the other kids would be running around and crying.

They tell me I was also fascinated by the tabla, but my parents discouraged me, saying, “If women play the tabla, then their wrists break.” I had a similar moment in college where I wanted to switch from vocals to a drumset and my parents said,  “Beta, why can’t you play something graceful like the piano!”

Which musicians influence the music you compose and sing you? People like Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. Mehdi Hussin. Beghum Akhtar. Super classical people. And of course Ella Fitzgerald, Erykah Badu, Billie Holiday. Also an amazing composer is Meshell Ndegeocello, who has just funky, deep grooves. Her voice is so rich and moving. Her compositions are really dark, melancholic and slow. She’s amazing.

Tell us about your band and how you chose the instruments? I put out an album in 2006 featuring six songs that I had recorded while I was at Berklee. I put them out on the Internet with the world being the test audience. It was just intelligent pop, featuring an acoustic guitar player, an upright bass player and a percussionist. It  also had a little bit of jazz, rock and some flamenco.

Recently, I’ve been switching instruments around, for instance, we have a Turkish percussion player.  We also utilize an Arab instrument called the kanoon, kind of a sit-down harp thing. Also horn. I hope to arrive at a sound that is world music, but not Starbucks café world music. I’m tired of this exoticized South Asian music. There’s so much music like that. It’s so annoying. It has this exoticized vibe in the way that they treat female vocals. It features the same few chords over and over again. It makes me crazy. Over here, just walking around being a South Asian musician, they will just immediately slap that on you. Before they hear you sing or hear your music, they will assume you’re that same exoticized music. That you’re that sound.

What’s it like playing with an all-male band? There have been some really difficult moments. When the leader of the band is female, it’s really important that she be a very strong instrumentalist. Otherwise, people just think, “The diva has arrived.” It’s surprising to me that even being around really well-informed musicians, vocalists – especially females –  are still belittled. There’s always that initial struggle. “I’m not going to write it for you, I’m not going to play for you.” As musicians, we should all be able to communicate with each other with respect and grace.

I have learned that you can’t just hand out charts and say “Play these notes.” That produces a forced, synthetic sound. You have to invite people that you love and respect to come with you to a space and create sound that is super organic and alive. The people I work with now, I really respect.

Tell me about Rebuild Pakistan? My band and I did a three week live installation with Sonny Singh and many other amazing artists. We holed up in a house in Brooklyn and came together in solidarity for Pakistan to record. The result was magical.

Check out his video for “Guttersnipe,” his sultry voice set along a snapshot of “life along the Indian railways,” after the jump.

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…

Could an 18-year-old singer named Mathai be the next winner of NBC’s The Voice?

Billboard called Mathai’s performance on the show last week “awe-inspiring” and noted she was “one of the few [contestants] who understands nuance and power.”

I hope that as the season progresses we’ll get to see Mathai do more ballads. This 2010 talent show performance, in which a then-16-year-old Mathai covers Adele’s version of To Make You Feel My Love, is incredible. (You can check out more of her songs at her official YouTube channel.)

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

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!

The band members of The Kominas have shifted to not only to now include the duo from Sunny Ali and the Kid, but also in instrumental roles – three of the four bandmates take a turn on the mic for this album. With multiple talents acting as the driving force between music and lyrics, the album is eclectic and completely different sounding from anything previously released by The Kominas. People have been saying that their sound has “matured” but instead, I feel the new album better reflects the skills and sounds of the new band members trying collaborate and create a new cohesive sound (Basim Usmani is the only original band member that remains from 2005).

Don’t just take my word for it. Follow the link here to the megaupload site to download the album. And if you are too chicken to download the album before listening to a song – here’s the demo to Ren, a song off of the new album.

Frankly put, it sounds like our punks have evolved – they just may be growing up.

But like California, the real-life Donkeys (best friends from Southern California, Timothy DeNardo, Jessie Gulati, Anthony Lukens and Sam Sprague) are much more… real. If their backstory contains those top-down cars and suntanned utopian surf tableaus, it also contains the malaise and the escape fantasies familiar to all suburban kids of the 80s and 90s. Miraculously, the music manages to comfortably communicate both moods at once. [deadoceans]

Turns out the making of this album was side tracked just a little bit when guitarist Jessie went to India for sitar lessons. The influence can now be heard on sitar influenced tracks “West Coast Raga” and “East Coast Raga” peppered throughout the album.  Check out The Donkeys on facebook and at their site. And let me know what you think!