Adil Najam
A friend sent me the link to this video and I just love it. How can a song go wrong with doodh malai and sooji ka halwa.
The song has the feel of nursery rhyme meets folk meets country meets pop meets fusion meets all sorts of other things I know nothing about. But for me it was about nostalgia as much as the mixing of sounds. The same thing that had made me love the Jazz renditions of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s qawallis in Brooklyn, makes me nod my head to this; and smile.
I must confess that I knew nothing about the singer - Tariq Mirza, or Tee-M - before this. But a visit to his website was instructional:
TEE-M (Tariq Mirza) grew up in Karachi, Pakistan hearing rock/pop on the short-wave radio, listening to street musicians playing the tunes of the land, and learning to play on a hand-me-down guitar. TEE-M recently completed his first album EARTHIOTIC, which made it’s worldwide debut on “Rock 50″ internet radio show on WPMD.org. TEE-M has toured for Starbucks, and is featured in a short film, The Ultimate Song (according to New York Times, “a real winner”), along with the likes of Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Wayne Kramer (MC5) Tom Morello, Ice T, Steve Earle, and others. The film has been shown at Farm Aid and SXSW.
Here is a sampling of two other songs from the album:
Yaarah
Man Without a Country
Heard this first and thought, not my type.
Heard it again and liked it much better.
Specially when I understood he is talking about a dream and his feeling of nostalgia about his mother and her cooking. Nice idea there.
He is such a good singer. He recently performed at a Cafe in Karachi and was a super hit! Esp this song…
My two year old, Zoya Hamdani loves it.
This is really v. nice & funny song; music & rhythum is good too; though I have always found Pakistani ‘pop’ songs weird when they mix two languages. This is an exception.
Kool song :)
Nice work. I like it.
The beat is knd of catchy and the theme is funny…. interesting. Heard the other two… probably not my type
but, yes, you cannot go wrong with sogi ka halwa
Yes, it is indeed nostalgic, and we all desi’s has a taste of both and sometimes too much of it :D.