Latest news with #Brockhampton
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I feel equally rooted in bhangra and hyperpop, queer anthems and Sufi poetry': Pakistani star Ali Sethi on his defiant debut album
As a child, Ali Sethi was enthralled watching Sufi whirling – a religious dance – at nearby shrines in Punjab: 'There's this collective catharsis that takes place and, briefly, your caste, class, gender, appearance, they stop mattering. You have licence in an otherwise extremely hierarchical society to just express yourself.' This is something the 41-year-old Pakistani-American singer, songwriter and composer hopes to create himself. Though he's also a writer – be that his acclaimed 2009 novel, The Wish Maker, or contributions to publications such as the New Yorker – music became somewhere Sethi could be accepted, especially as a queer person growing up in Lahore. 'I think music has this shamanic function in south Asian culture,' he says, 'where things you cannot say in lay language you say in the love language of music.' Sethi's stratospheric, shiver-inducing voice dissolves cultural divides. Take Intiha, his sublime 2023 experimental album of Sufi poetry with Chilean-American musician Nicolás Jaar, or 2022's Pasoori, a bombastic raga-meets-reggaeton track which has surpassed a billion streams on YouTube Music, making it easily the biggest song to come out of Pakistan this century. When we speak, Sethi is about to release his debut solo album, Love Language, which builds on Pasoori's thundering, Technicolor global pop. Working with producers like Brockhampton's Romil Hemnani and Colombian musician Juan Ariza, it's exuberant and almost oversaturated, flecked with 00s R&B, Bollywood, drill rap, slinky flamenco, even a skit on the children's game 'akkad bakkad', all of it underlined with hallmarks of north Indian classical. Not everyone is pleased. Sethi trained under two of the greats of classical music, Ustad Saami and Farida Khanum, and his initial career was in that more traditional world; some fans yearn for 'the old Ali Sethi'. Though he's adamant about using south Asian ragas rather than western chord progressions to inform the melodies for his songs, Sethi recounts how even the esteemed Ustad Saami asked him whether his music lately is fusion or, simply, confusion. 'But I think in today's completely monstrous world, what could be a better reflection than confusion?' Sethi laughs. The work of Pakistani musicians, including Sethi, has been banned and removed from streaming services in India, where fans are forced to access the music via VPN due to escalating tensions between both countries. 'If you're looking at it from the point of view of ideologues, music is the one thing that has kept the populations of India and Pakistan deeply connected to one another,' he says. 'Every time the walls go up, the borders get re-erected but some song slips past, and there's an instant [release of] fellow feeling … this unspoken connection.' The brief outbreak of conflict between the two nations earlier this year has worsened the cultural divide. The opening track on Sethi's album was initially a duet with a well-known Bollywood singer, but a film industry body threatened that any Indian artist collaborating with a Pakistani artist would be blacklisted. The song is now censored, cut through with screams and distorted industrial textures. Sethi has also been unable to get a visa to enter India in nearly a decade. 'Ever since I started releasing music, my biggest audience has been in India, and it's the one place I've not been able to go,' he says. He wryly notes that the themes of 'forbidden love' he explores in his music are 'already in place' thanks to the travel ban. Inspired by Pakistani revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Sethi's lyrics read like love songs, but they're layered with double-meanings about ethno-nationalism, Islamophobia, war, queerness and exile. On Bridegroom, he subverts a 13th-century qawwali sometimes sung at weddings, his untethered, gliding voice delivering coy lyrics that translate to 'don't ask about my husband'. This follows 'pretty rigorously orchestrated fake news' two years ago, falsely claiming Sethi and his partner, the Pakistani painter Salman Toor, had breached local law and married. He didn't know how to react, until the answer came in the form of this song. 'I realised the appropriate response is to troll them back with what they think of as semi-sacred music, saying, 'I refuse to give up my traditions.'' Sethi may laugh in defiance, but his words are tinged with sadness. 'These last few years have been a whirlwind, not always in the nicest ways,' he says. 'There's a lot of angst and despair, a lot of ruing the loss of a milieu, the loss of home – but also revelling in new homes, temporary shelters, finding community with other musicians in places like Los Angeles, London and New York.' He says the success of NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is revitalising; the way he 'squares that distance between all these different communities.' Love Language, then, is Sethi's attempt at the same: a 'diary of displacement' with the accompanying tour set to be 'a variety show for the end times'. Mainly, he wants the music to be a refuge, and to capture his and his audience's multiplicities. 'I'm hoping it comes across as a work of synthesis rather than a work of assimilation,' Sethi says of his album, an attempt to make hybrid music without 'simplifying or diluting' any of its constituent parts. 'I feel equally rooted in Punjabi bhangra and hyperpop, equally conversant with queer club anthems and Sufi poetry; and, actually, I see all these connections all the time, because they dwell within me.' Love Language is out now on Zubberdust Media/The Orchard
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I feel equally rooted in bhangra and hyperpop, queer anthems and Sufi poetry': Pakistani star Ali Sethi on his defiant debut album
As a child, Ali Sethi was enthralled watching Sufi whirling – a religious dance – at nearby shrines in Punjab: 'There's this collective catharsis that takes place and, briefly, your caste, class, gender, appearance, they stop mattering. You have licence in an otherwise extremely hierarchical society to just express yourself.' This is something the 41-year-old Pakistani-American singer, songwriter and composer hopes to create himself. Though he's also a writer – be that his acclaimed 2009 novel, The Wish Maker, or contributions to publications such as the New Yorker – music became somewhere Sethi could be accepted, especially as a queer person growing up in Lahore. 'I think music has this shamanic function in south Asian culture,' he says, 'where things you cannot say in lay language you say in the love language of music.' Sethi's stratospheric, shiver-inducing voice dissolves cultural divides. Take Intiha, his sublime 2023 experimental album of Sufi poetry with Chilean-American musician Nicolás Jaar, or 2022's Pasoori, a bombastic raga-meets-reggaeton track which has surpassed a billion streams on YouTube Music, making it easily the biggest song to come out of Pakistan this century. When we speak, Sethi is about to release his debut solo album, Love Language, which builds on Pasoori's thundering, Technicolor global pop. Working with producers like Brockhampton's Romil Hemnani and Colombian musician Juan Ariza, it's exuberant and almost oversaturated, flecked with 00s R&B, Bollywood, drill rap, slinky flamenco, even a skit on the children's game 'akkad bakkad', all of it underlined with hallmarks of north Indian classical. Not everyone is pleased. Sethi trained under two of the greats of classical music, Ustad Saami and Farida Khanum, and his initial career was in that more traditional world; some fans yearn for 'the old Ali Sethi'. Though he's adamant about using south Asian ragas rather than western chord progressions to inform the melodies for his songs, Sethi recounts how even the esteemed Ustad Saami asked him whether his music lately is fusion or, simply, confusion. 'But I think in today's completely monstrous world, what could be a better reflection than confusion?' Sethi laughs. The work of Pakistani musicians, including Sethi, has been banned and removed from streaming services in India, where fans are forced to access the music via VPN due to escalating tensions between both countries. 'If you're looking at it from the point of view of ideologues, music is the one thing that has kept the populations of India and Pakistan deeply connected to one another,' he says. 'Every time the walls go up, the borders get re-erected but some song slips past, and there's an instant [release of] fellow feeling … this unspoken connection.' The brief outbreak of conflict between the two nations earlier this year has worsened the cultural divide. The opening track on Sethi's album was initially a duet with a well-known Bollywood singer, but a film industry body threatened that any Indian artist collaborating with a Pakistani artist would be blacklisted. The song is now censored, cut through with screams and distorted industrial textures. Sethi has also been unable to get a visa to enter India in nearly a decade. 'Ever since I started releasing music, my biggest audience has been in India, and it's the one place I've not been able to go,' he says. He wryly notes that the themes of 'forbidden love' he explores in his music are 'already in place' thanks to the travel ban. Inspired by Pakistani revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Sethi's lyrics read like love songs, but they're layered with double-meanings about ethno-nationalism, Islamophobia, war, queerness and exile. On Bridegroom, he subverts a 13th-century qawwali sometimes sung at weddings, his untethered, gliding voice delivering coy lyrics that translate to 'don't ask about my husband'. This follows 'pretty rigorously orchestrated fake news' two years ago, falsely claiming Sethi and his partner, the Pakistani painter Salman Toor, had breached local law and married. He didn't know how to react, until the answer came in the form of this song. 'I realised the appropriate response is to troll them back with what they think of as semi-sacred music, saying, 'I refuse to give up my traditions.'' Sethi may laugh in defiance, but his words are tinged with sadness. 'These last few years have been a whirlwind, not always in the nicest ways,' he says. 'There's a lot of angst and despair, a lot of ruing the loss of a milieu, the loss of home – but also revelling in new homes, temporary shelters, finding community with other musicians in places like Los Angeles, London and New York.' He says the success of NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is revitalising; the way he 'squares that distance between all these different communities.' Love Language, then, is Sethi's attempt at the same: a 'diary of displacement' with the accompanying tour set to be 'a variety show for the end times'. Mainly, he wants the music to be a refuge, and to capture his and his audience's multiplicities. 'I'm hoping it comes across as a work of synthesis rather than a work of assimilation,' Sethi says of his album, an attempt to make hybrid music without 'simplifying or diluting' any of its constituent parts. 'I feel equally rooted in Punjabi bhangra and hyperpop, equally conversant with queer club anthems and Sufi poetry; and, actually, I see all these connections all the time, because they dwell within me.' Love Language is out now on Zubberdust Media/The Orchard
Express Tribune
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Ali Sethi's ever-shifting soundscape
Kicking off the new year with a fresh wave of sound, Ali Sethi has unveiled two new singles, Tera Sitam and Maya. While the former rides on smooth, melodic arrangements, the latter carries a deep, ghazal-inspired introspection, both reinforcing Sethi's reputation for blending the traditional with the contemporary. As the pop artist continues to push artistic boundaries, building on the surprise of his late-2024 release Lovely Bukhaar, he sat down with Rolling Stone India to discuss his creative evolution and his ambitions for the year ahead. "I wanted to put out a strange-sounding song. Something wild and unexpected. I guess I wanted to throw myself off, not set any kind of expectation," he reflected. "While Lovely Bukhaar and Tera Sitam are very different songs - the former is smoky and unpredictable, the latter smooth and structured - they have one thing in common, which is the expression of a smouldering one-sided love." The origins of Tera Sitam trace back two years to a Los Angeles studio session with producer Romil Hemnani, formerly of the hip-hop collective Brockhampton. "It's always like that for me: the tune comes first, in this case, the whole thing came fully formed, the verse, the chorus, etc. But for the words I had to think long and hard." Sethi collaborated with Urdu poet Sunayana Kachroo to craft the song's lyrical identity. "I love what she brings to this song, a certain shehri Urdu that's also steeped in our ancient, epic notions of exile and separation." The response, he notes, has been overwhelmingly positive. "I'm glad the song is out, the reactions have been intense and overwhelmingly good." 'Mehfil' over mainstream Beyond these releases, Sethi recently received a Juno nomination for Love Like That, a collaboration with Indian singer Jonita Gandhi. "That's a marvellous song. Jonita is such a star. I'm so proud of her for pushing the envelope with Love Like That - the musical arrangement as well as the visuals. She deserves the Juno and much more." As for the larger body of work these songs belong to, the singer confirms that an album is in the works. "It's an album after all, though I feel kind of estranged from that word," Sethi contemplated. "I want to say it's a mehfil or daastaan - in the South Asian tradition of song-collections." He envisions the project as an immersive experience, evoking the mood of the musical gatherings he grew up with in Lahore. "I want the listener to feel like they are in the presence of a moody maverick musician for sixty or so minutes. Like the qawwali or ghazal recitals I grew up attending in Lahore. One minute the music is slow and sultry, the next minute it's a rave, a now-naughty, now-nice kind of thing." Much of this vision has been shaped by his collaborators, including Hemnani, whose approach to music production Sethi deeply admires. "Romil was gentle and unassuming in the studio. Also subtle in his choice of tones and textures. When he's inspired you can see it in his eyes. Some of his ideas that he shared with me - about what an album can or should be - were profound and blew my mind." The duo's collaboration also carries a personal connection. "I love the fact that we were both born in Pakistan, me in Punjab and Romil in Sindh, but ended up meeting in far-off California. Now I am Insta-friends with his mom who is super nice." Mughal jama moment Reflecting on his 2023 Coachella performances, Sethi acknowledged his impact on the representation of South Asian artists on global stages. "At the time I was trolled for wearing a flaring Mughal jama, which my fellow Pakistanis (and some Indians too) deemed 'not representative of our culture,' whatever that means." He furthered on, "But apart from that I had a blast. I was delighted to see all those South Asians in trippy desert prints and hats filling up my tent. They showed up, literally and metaphorically. It was all very Dum Maro Dum, of the past and of the future at the same time." As for broader representation in the global music scene, Sethi remains optimistic. "I think we are doing a great job of being us right now. That's all I have to say: keep being you and doing you. Look at all the genres Punjabi music has assimilated into itself: rap, trap, rock, '80s synth-pop, reggaeton, house and disco, all without losing or diluting its own idiosyncratic inflections. We need more of everything at this point in time, freewheeling expansive playfulness in all directions!" Looking ahead, the singer is fully immersed in his upcoming album, a project he's visibly excited about. "This album thing. It's good, it really is," said Sethi.
