With regard to one of the most well documented subcultures I’ve ever seen, there are two major Taqwacore events culminating in this month: a documentary and a photography book (Past SM Taqx post here, here and here). The first would be the Canadian premiere of the documentary full length movie Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam. Documentary producer Omar Majeed in conjunction with EyeSteelFilm, follows author Michael Muhammad Knight and subsequent Taqwacore bands for four years to make this film.
In the first part of the film, Knight organizes a taqwacore tour of the U.S., bringing the Kominas, Vancouver-based Islamic riot-grrl trio Secret Trial Five, and a shapeshifting crew on the road. After documenting this Islamic twist on the typical hijinks and humiliations of the road, the chapter climaxes with an appearance at ISNA…The film’s second half is even more interesting, as Knight, Khan and Usmani travel to Pakistan, where their efforts to bring politicized rock to the people encounters a whole different form of opposition.
“To some extent,” [says Omar Majeed], “the reason I called the film The Birth of Punk Islam is because I saw this whole process as a kind of birthing. It wasn’t just that this was happening and I was filming it, but rather that by my being there and filming it, we managed to give birth to this thing. I think that kind of shows in the filmmaking, the way it’s put together. I’m not always rushing to get the other side of things, I’m not looking to be journalistic or fair and balanced. I’m really trying to tell their story in a way that I find relatable.”[montrealmirror]
The film has been well received at the Vancouver International Film Festival and The Kominas and Sarmust joined Majeed for the Montreal screening this past weekend. It looked like it was a huge success with a packed audience (watch the q&a here) and the film tour continues to Toronto this weekend. If you are in Toronto, go Saturday for the TaqwaToronto after the screenings with a fantastic line up performers including The Kominas, Sarmust, Secret Trial Five, and panel discussion including Knight.
GIVEAWAY: We have two tickets available to the October 17th Saturday night screening and TaqwaToronto concert in Toronto! Details after the jump…
To win, please come up with your best song title for The Kominas next song (i.e. Sharia Law in the USA, Suicide Bomb the Gap). Put it in the comments. Wittiest title wins (extra points if you can make it a Sex Pistol/Islam fusion of a pun). You have till Oct 15th, midnight. Please include your e-mail so we can contact you with the tickets.
Also there, will be acclaimed photographer Kim Badawi. Badawi’s photography book The Taqwacores: Muslim Punk in the USA hit bookstores last month and I had the joy of joining the Taqwacore crew in Brooklyn for the launch of his book. Published by PowerHouse Books, PowerHouse Arena has a photography exhibit of Badawi’s photos through October 25th. The photos on exhibit are amazing, able to capture the a community in a way that only someone from the inside can. If in Dumbo, I highly suggest stopping by.
Beginning in 2006, Badawi traveled across the U.S. with the musicians who had been spurred to action by Knight’s creative vision. In 2007 he was invited to accompany the TaqwaTour, traveling to major cities across North America alongside bands including The Kominas and Secret Trial Five. As the genre continues to take shape and influence a rising generation of artists and intellectuals, Badawi’s The Taqwacores stands as a photographic companion to the original text and an indispensable document of the making of a movement.[powerhouse]
Many of the images in the book can be seen in the above slide show set to the tune Muhammad Was a Punk Rocker sung by Taqwacore band Vote Hezbollah. More updated pictures by Badawi can be found at Up The Taqx. Kim Badawi’s other photos (he’s following Fairies in his next project) can be found at his site here. And of course, you can buy your copy of The Taqwacores: Muslim Punk in the USA through powerHouse Books or at a bookstore near you.
On a personal note, it’s been exciting to see this community grow over the years. I didn’t know who The Kominas, Knight, or any of the bands were before I wrote this first post (Halal Punkers) back in 2006 and here we are now three years later with Knight, Usmani and Rai showing up at the Sepia Mutiny meetup in Boston. The Taqwacore crew has built up a community similarly to the way the mutinous community has been built. As a space it’s about as real as it gets, the people in the space are genuine and if you get the chance, I highly recommend checking out the documentary and the photo book.
Previous Posts: Halal Punkers, You’re So Punk, Up the Taqx Near You!, and Wild Nights with The Kominas.
oh man, in London so can’t go. looks like a great movie.
“You need hands, so Don’t chop em off”
the pistols covered it (“you need hands”)
“At ramzan we have Funzam”
maybe for the album for the kid? 😉
Word…awesome and well-deserved coverage…wish I could go. I would love to see more documentation on the involvement of desipunk/hardcore kids as a whole having been going to shows for the better part of 15 years.
Also, it’s no secret desis love metal (watch the iron maiden flight 666 documentary) and I’ve been finding more and more desi folks into metal Canada’s Weapon (black metal), and Singapore’s Rudra (“vedic” metal) to name a few.
P.S. Keep it Hajjcore.
I find it so ironic that these kids are labeling their music “muslim punk.” How is this different from “christian punk”, or “jewish punk” or whatever? Equally ironic is the still image of one of these kids (who obviously lack any sense of diachrony in the punk movement) wearing an Alternative Tentacles t-shirt. Jello and company must be having a great laugh that their decidedly anti-religious ideals are being marketed in such a callous way! Just because some brown kids are playing some really shitty music doesn’t make it special. FWIW, there were desis in punk bands across the US and Canada in the 80s and 90s. And no, they weren’t obsessively navel gazing like these kids. Maybe I’m too old…
Christian punk is totally different than Taqwacore. One is about preaching a love for god (x-punk) and the second is one is more about smashing stereotypes, cultural and political ideas of Islam (taqx). I just wrote a piece on this over a the Taqwacore Zine about the Christian Punk band me without You and their song “Allah, Allah, Allah.” I talk about that comparison – Christian Punk vs Taqx. The analogy I used is The Kominas:Cat Stevens:: Dropkick Murphy:me without You
The guy wearing the Alt Tentacle shirt is Knight. They were the first publisher to print The Taqwacores when no one else would.
Taz, that’s an interesting comparison and your point is well taken. I think my problem with all of this is that these kids appear to to be very special. I’m assuming that they’re all north American, coming from upper middle class homes, educated, etc. That they get frisked at the airport more frequently than John White seems unremarkable to me and most likely not a result of their name being “mohammed” or “usman” or whatever, but the color of their skin. I’m a californian born to south indian (hindu) parents and encounter the same racist practices. Why should the fact that these kids have circumcised penises make them any more special in the larger milieu of social injustice? I would have so much more respect for this “movement” if it were devoid of the religious substrate and kept true to some of the ideals of second-wave political punk (i.e., not the Ramones, but mostly Californian punk of the 80s) that imagined a much wider scope in their politics, that is, blowing open and exposing crimes against poor people.
I’ve known (not personally) Michael Muhammad Knight back from his days at the Muslim Wake-up! website. And let me tell you, Michael Muhammad Knight is right, there is a “cool Islam” but sadly, he’s not a part of it.
The Islam Punk he claims to be a part of is only Punk. There is nothing Islamic about it besides the imagery.
Abdu (http://abdusalaam.blogspot.com)
Sepia Mutiny’s coverage of Taqwacore is the South Asian analog of affirmative action, and Taz is the head of admissions.
Taz stated ‘Christian punk is totally different than Taqwacore. One is about preaching a love for god (x-punk) and the second is one is more about smashing stereotypes, cultural and political ideas of Islam (taqx)’
And Knight is doing that by teaming up with Muslim haters?
This looks amazing……thank you for covering it. I have been following the Kominas for a while now when the band members were trying to promote themselves in the Desi Rock community on Livejournal. It’s so great they and others are getting exposure. Hope this plays in NYC soon.
I too would love to see a doc about desis in different scenes. When I used to go to Sevendust/Disturbed/Orgy shows in NYC I would see maybe a handful at most besides me…hopefully this has grown.
Some people need to get off their high horse. Who cares if they are upper middle class or upper class or any class whatsoever? If they are passionate about any topic at all (it could be trees and grass for all I care) and care to make music and documentaries about it that other people can relate to-then more power to them.
“I would have so much more respect for this “movement” if it were devoid of the religious substrate and kept true to some of the ideals of second-wave political punk (i.e., not the Ramones, but mostly Californian punk of the 80s) that imagined a much wider scope in their politics, that is, blowing open and exposing crimes against poor people.”
Chandran, I definitely understand your point though…any element that is divisive along those lines people find a reason to wave a flag for are met by me with skepticism. Any musicians on their own high falutin sacrificial ashwamedha high horse get the gas face. But there’s a reason I love the unenlightened crushing thuds of Negative Approach, Agnostic Front, Sheer Terror, etc. “Social injustice” is a euphemism that liberals throw around to make them feel okay for shopping at Whole Foods and 5 volumes of APOC approved anarchistic post-marxist diatribes don’t mean nothing if you can’t play your instrument. To that effect, Al-Thawra seems interesting blending North African Rai music with their interpretation of punk and the dudes in the Kominas are nice. Are the Zero Boys or Dead Kennedys or the first wave of American Thrash bands special? Maybe.
Are the bands who see themselves as Taqwacore special? Depends. I only know the Kominas. They’re nice folks, though and they have some music they worked arduously. Why hate? I digress; as an outsider, Taqwacore is similarly just another interpretation of punk…punk is decidedly middle-class is it not? Sex Pistols are a boy band, real talk. So what did you expect, exactly? There will probably never be a desi Negative Approach/Agnostic Front/Sheer Terror. Punk is not a philosophy and will not teach you how to raise your children and has never “blown open and/or exposed crimes against poor people.” How many punks have you seen run through detroit saving the city? I don’t even see the religious element of Islam as an issue…to me it’s more about the cultural things that people share…five punks at the mosque is better than no punks at the mosque, right? To the Kominas credit, they raised some money for a vandalised Hindu temple…but “movements” never ask for your respect, they just get co-opted by willing financiers given a certain period of time. Just look at straight-edge and how far Ian’s distanced himself from “it.” Not every band’s frontman can spit social commentary like Jello or piss as many people off as Born Against.
Like I said, I’d like to see desipunks chronicled as a whole, unmythologicized, un-stratified and raw and maybe I’ll get it done some day. Til then, let the Taqwacore documentary be a welcome addition, suburban or not. Where’s the Unity?
We’re not muslim punks and we never called ourselves that. In fact I can’t stand that term. Taqwacore is a word we’re okay with because it does mean anything besides what we want it to.
The only way Islam intersects with what we do is culturally or sometimes politically. Not all of us are even muslim.
I’ve never understood why this blog, and especially posts about Taqwacore or The Kominas always ends in a hindu muslim / class debate. Or some person makes a snarky comment about how the music sucks and the next 19 comments are other people congratulating that person. Boston_Mahesh I’m looking at you.
If you haven’t even bothered to listen to the music or listen to the lyrics and tried to understand them, your opinion doesn’t hold a lot of clout.
Rajen, you have some good points. Again, I’m really objecting to the navel gazing and the associated labeling of ‘islamic’ punk. With regard to the first part, I suppose every generation needs their healthy dose of feeling sorry for themselves. FWIW I was born and raised in Alameda, CA and felt my fair share of oppression, racism, whatever you want to call it. But being the mid 80s, our outlet/solace was in the larger punk community (specifically the gilman st. project) where the color of our skin or the gods in my parents’ puja room didn’t matter. I soon realized that yeah, desis have it rough, but you know what…poor people (which was often coincident with mexicans and blacks) are fucked. Why would you want a desi NA? They sucked. Now a desi minutemen or fang would be much better. 🙂 I guess my point is, why a desi anything or in this case, an islamic punk? I’d be suspect of any X-core, Krishnacore, Taqwacore or otherwise.
From my experience, bands like Born Against, econochrist, et al., had a very disdainful view of organized religion, especially prophetic ones, so it seems off to even bring them up.
Imran, what is ‘culturally’ Islamic to you? I suspect that when you step out of your house you’re treated in a very similar way to other browns who perhaps aren’t muslim. Labeling this a islamic punk is very exclusive. That’s all I’m saying.
the last post was by me…dunno why it came up as Anonymous.
Why visit this blog? It’s a Desi blog that talks about everything desi. You could read Huff Post, Daily Kos, Boing Boing, but you still decide to read SM. Let me assume you visit it for reasons I visit it. I visit Sepia Mutiny because I like to feel like I’m part of an online community of folks that are going through the same Desi experiences I am. We read to see what other Desis are up to. I choose topics to write because of that.
Taqwacores is like that. I identify as taqwacore because in these people I found a community of folks that are going through the same experience that I am. The Taqwacore music isn’t preaching (like x punk, krishnacore, etc…). Generally, people sings songs about things that are important to them – raised muslim and desi, the punk songs Taqx bands sing will have by default be related. The Kominas are also not exclusive – they’ve performed with DJ Rekha, go to crust shows of Native Americans, have had Sonny Singh of Red Baraat play horns on stage with them and have interviews on podcasts about Afro-Punk. They play with and to all people.
I always find the anti-ethnocentricty arguments moot on SM when the visitors on this site are obviously reading it because it gives them ethnocentric experience. Intersectionality exists. And it’s awesome.
This comment thread is also exactly what i was referring to in this post, para six.
I just wanted to say that I don’t feel that The Kominas are “exclusive”. They have always seemed very open-minded to me, and as Taz already said, they do perform with people of different ethnic/religious backgrounds. I’m glad they are receiving coverage on this blog. It’s important for the Southasian community to appreciate its artists.
Y the bloody F**k?
y are more people not doing this crazy cool competition Taz has provided?
Unfortunately, I’ve never been to a taqwacore show, but I’m excited to watch this. Looks interesting. When’s it coming to the US?
Free yourself by singing into the great varied multiple coral reef of life and people out there. Don’t make music sectarian.
Imran,
Class is inevitable when a commenter references how certain bands were ‘exposing crimes against poor people’ and you are comfortable with using the term “punk.” There are really are very few bands who help poor people. Dave Matthews once visited my childhood trailer but he certainly wasn’t there to help my family escape poverty.
As to music ‘sucking’ there is always a subjective test. For me it is generally, “can I understand this music by dividing everything into measures of 4 beats only” (very bad), is there gratuitous distortion? (very bad), do chords take a backseat to politics (very bad) or am I buffeted by polyrhythmic percussion and texture-and-timbre-shifting melody? (great.)” Thrash, by itself, sucks. Thrash plus genius musicians get you to Meshuggah and Fellsilent.
i’m sure there are few who will congratulate me for feeling this way. feel better?
12 · Imran on October 14, 2009 3:56 PM · Boston_Mahesh I’m looking at you. If you haven’t even bothered to listen to the music or listen to the lyrics and tried to understand them, your opinion doesn’t hold a lot of clout.
You should be looking at your drum kit more so that way you keep your time better. But that being said, I think that a Desi boy band is a great business idea.
@boston_mahesh
That was so childish. If you were man enough you should have come to the Sepia Mutiny Meetup in Boston and said stuff to peoples faces.
Behave — that’s a “personal non-issue-focused flame” and liable to get you deleted and banned.
SM Intern,
Snark from a dark corner of the web is a time honored tradition and this was light-hearted compared to some of Rahul and Manju’s more ebullient moments.
I never noticed sustainable food/locavore activists/progressive ‘advocates for the poor and disenfranchised’ coming to my trailer community in Buckingham. Doesn’t give me the right to infer that they were ‘less than’ men or cowards at all. Ignorance is a choice. In this case, BM has a categorical point–“punk” as a genre is famous for emphasizing youth culture and politics over skill in playing the instrument and composition. Just because this is being played by those with whom you feel a certain kind of kinship does not mean that they are great musicians or that this is great music. Even diehard Ayn Rand fans will, to a person, admit that her prose was best described as lugubrious, ‘whale-like’ and stunk like a beached one–but is notable for appreciating Rand’s powers of observation in a gradually disintegrating society.
Why won’t Komina’s fans do the same? I passed it around many friends, both consumers and musicians, and to a person it was described as ‘crap.’ When wealthy people (and this is relative to me) find the time to make art that their cultural peers can celebrate, why is it notable? Why is it significant that people with all the advantages in life, actualized them and made leisure into lifestyle?
when you find a group of people who grew up on a maximum of $15k a year for most of their formative years, lets say 14-15 years or so, who have done the same exact thing, I’ll “ooh and ahh” with the rest of you. Until then it’s amused disdain all the way.
Okay, look, I’m sorry. I know nothing about punk and back in my days with the young republican league, all they gave us to listen to was Staind, Creed, and Whitney Houston to listen to. I’m a little burnt over that. Alot of my comments are intended to rouse chuckles, not suspicion. I believe, like Dinesh D’Souza, the best person should do the job. In the case of one-liners, that would be me. Have a sense of humor! I don’t actually believe the stuff I say, it’s just fall out from my years as a now defunct debate team champion. Life is parallax. My apologies. I actually live in Walpole and don’t have a car…so next meet up maybe I can catch a ride from someone?
Not sure what the hype is about but what caught my eye in the video was the guy walking on the flag of US at the entrance of the bus (@ :50). Why is rebelling against USA “cool” for these guys? If your stated objective is to modernize Islam, then what does USA have to do with it?
The comment attributed to me and made on October 15, 2009 8:15 AM was not by me. I think that it was cute, actually, and it put a smile on my face.
To Imran: In music, or life in general, there are going to be fans and non-fans. Although I’m not a fan of your drumming/band, I respect you as you seem quite polite. This is not a referendum on your character, pal.
To the Sepia Mutiny Intern: Where was your accusation of “personal non-issue-focused flame” when someone made racists comments towards me (and to all South Indians and darker South Asians)? Perhaps you should be more fair and balanced. Quit singling me out just because I am not a fan of this band.
One more thing, here is the link for that racist comment made towards South Indians.
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/005855.html#comment243904
The poster stated that I am “a dark skinned tamil who routinely gets fair skinned babes.” This is a “personal non-issue-focused flame” that should have gotten the poster banned/reprimanded.
This is a double-standard. Shame on you intern/Taz.
Every time someone admits to agreeing with Dinesh D’Souza about something I die a little inside.
Comment #24 was funny. Comment #26, not so much. I prefer the fake Boston Mahesh. Can we vote on it?
I’m getting tired of Taqwacore. Been reading about MMK since 2003. These guys are getting old (in their 30s now!). Let’s have something new. TaqwaPolka? HalalaPalooza?
Is it weird that all the criticism here seems to be coming from south indians/tamils? Weeeird.
Nowadays it seems like everything involving muslims (or ex muslims) has to be analyzed closely, has to get the ‘Muslim-‘ prefix. I don’t think that’s the fault of the bands, but the result of the west’s obsession with islam (I think one of the reasons south indians find this stuff pointless is because they aren’t all that preoccupied or concerned with islam). Taz is right that there’s nothing wrong with covering this, and this place is for exactly this sort of thing, but the trailer isn’t probing like that, it’s pretty explicitly about muslim punk….(“there is a cool islam, we just have to find it” is corny by the way)
There are enough musical subgenres that punk can afford ‘taqwacore’, but it would be realer if they just called it punk and got on with it. Doesn’t matter if they can’t play or whatever, look at the trailer, they got whatever they need.
Nayagan you’re being unfair with your prole anger. It’s easy to mock the upper middle class 2nd gen pak/indian-americans (it’s a guilty pleasure of mine) but be fair, you don’t have to be poor to be a punk.
The non-selfconscious proto-punk/punk did seem to be a working class phenomena though. Sex Pistols, Stooges etc. Which is why I don’t understand Greenday or modern incarnations of suburban punk (I am not referring to taqwacore), what exactly is the source of their disaffection? They all seem to have been the beneficiaries of good orthodontics and look like they were popular in high school. As per Taqwacore I don’t doubt that there is a tension growing up Muslim & a visible minority that makes the emotion behind this authentic, even if the bands are from middle class backgrounds.
If you stick to the word “Taqwa” as a prefix you can expect to have it be associated with Muslims. I think the “close analysis” you’re talking about has to do more with South Asians’ propensity towards pointless navel-gazing and over-analysis than anything else.
They’re pissed off but they’re too polite When people break in the Whole Foods line Mom and Dad have got them so uptight They’re gonna cuss on the mic tonight
Chandran, there is a reason it’s not called Islamcore. It’s not meant to be exclusive. The terms muslim punk and punk islam were creations of journalists trying to sell stories about taqwacore.
This community has always been hostile towards us, but I’m feeling that it’s starting to be less so. And I appreciate that. This is a community of people I always hoped would be a source of encouragement. We’re 4 brown dudes making music and getting recognized by major media channels and somehow the people that read a blog which “covers all things brown” automatically dislike us. I assume that most of the people that read this blog understand the pressures of growing up a brown kid in the west. And understand why it’s difficult to be a musician or an artist and why that should be supported. It’s unfortunate that somehow it’s glazed over, but brown kids making music, together, in america, using their own vocabulary and talking about the things that are on their mind is actually a pretty cool thing.
I’ll tell you one thing, because I think it may be important for all of you to understand this. We’re not divisive. We reach out to hindus, sikhs, muslims, afropunks, nonsecular musicians to play and jam and build with us. We played with an afropunk band for a few dates on our last national tour. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t that be the opposite of navel gazing?
and P.S. Ikram, I’m 25, how old are you?
Vandy,
unfair? that’s rich. poverty is unfair. criticism from those who actually know the trappings of outrage that these fellows drape over themselves so easily is predictable, surely, but uninformed (see louiecypher) defensiveness based on “Hey man, we’re everybrowndude, just singing songs about how it’s tough to have only 4 ap classes available in highschool” is most certainly deserved of unrestrained snark.
Imran, since you won’t engage, i’ll supply: im 25 and i’ve had to suborn all creative impulse and natural skill to find the best remunerated job available–such that my gigantic student loan burden is actually manageable by the time I want to have entitled babies. Since you don’t know ‘poor’ most will assume (rightly) that you’re owning the ‘shitty musician’ element of the punk label.
That’s presumptuous as hell Nayagan. There’s no governing board of punk music so stop trying to be an arbiter. They’ve got something to express, so let em express it. They seem to have an audience, so it looks like they’re speaking on something that others relate to. It’s easy dismiss rich brown folk in america (as I said, I also enjoy doing it) but there are waaay worse targets than these guys. Half the shit people get up in arms at on SM is ridiculous trifling stuff.
Nagayan,
While I see where you’re coming from and can probably relate to your spite for entitled assholes on a personal level, I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to make behind all your highfalutin loggorhea. Do you want them Taqwacorists to stop? Do you want to discredit them publicly because you think their complaints are illegitima.te but well-fed and clothed red-headed stepchildren in the pantheon of real relevant desi related things? Anyone can talk shit and make it rhyme Yeah, being desi is not special…what is shared by people who have something…anything in common is pretty special but only to those people. So what’s your contention with that? Your retorts fall on deaf ears (this is a fuk’n blog for fuck’s sake) and even moreso, when you type big words, morons like me have no clue what you’re getting at because you present yourself like a well oiled professor shouting the down and out desi gospel from atop his podium dropping knowledge on the ignorant, stupid head masses. Desi, please…no one’s questioning your intellectual proletariat fortitude and no one’s saying Gilman St. and DIY basement hardcore was a failure because something ambiguously religious (so says the media)..hell, 108 plays shows there regularly…but I’ll tell Rob Fish to stop doing jappa before their sets.
The media is often uninformed and uninvested in what they purport to inform the masses about. So kids, who have it hard however you want to slice the demographics and if one pre-teen kid finds what he or she interprets desipunk/Taqwacore/etc. breathing a little easier knowing there’s something else out there they can myspace friend which could be helpful to them in constructing their identity some form or fashion is in my opinion successful! You want some other kind of revolucion de los abajos? Start your own band or zine and watch as MRR tags you as the next subcontinental genius. Besides, very Marx has had his/her Engels.
For those who ARE Muslim and somehow complicit in religiousizing the “movement” called Taqwacore, to me they’re performing their own lesser jihad against the ignorance that pervades their immediate communities by exploring other avenues of life and challenging the status quo. It’s so easy to pigeonhole and put lines around the differences between people instead of seeing the venn-diagrammed commonalities.
Tat svam asi, brother…from eternity and nothingness there you shall return…so keep it posi.
Article in the star
If I like your music, I like your music. Your race, ethnicity, religion or lack thereof, gender, sexual preference, socioeconomic class is not that important to me.
I did not like the scene where the American flag was covered over the steps where it was stepped on. But the rest of the trailer seemed interesting.
I agree with Boston_Mahesh 100%. Taz could very well be SM’s Michael Steele. And the intern should really have a clear standard here regarding comments and not threaten comments’ authors based on whim.
Nayagan: uninformed defensiveness about what? I don’t claim this disaffection, I grew up happy & upper middle class and have been pretty dismissive in my comments in other threads about what I consider “oppression studies”. I’m Hindu and brown (with alleged saffron sympathies) and simply guessed that to be brown and from a Muslim background regardless of religiousity makes one an outsider in a way that I am not.
louiecypher: i didn’t make that clear enough–i thought your comment explained how one is blind to class if one claims “punk” and is surprised when others dispute (however legit the emotion may be). and there probably are people out there making angry music because of circumstances completely outside being a high-ses Muslim in america–music that doesn’t get discovered because of the powerful framing effects exerted by bands like this on the consumption habits of prime consumers/propagators of the this ethnic-unrest punk.
Why don’t they actually ask poor Muslims, especially immigrants, what looms larger (and empirically substantial) as obstacles, their cultural commitments and affectations or the complete lack of fiscal and social capital? Billy Joe in Green Day, at least, was forced to supplement his parents’ income by working at a fish-processing plant. That’s the kind of perspective that’s missing here and it’s a gaping hole.
I doubt they would know what a poor muslim looks like or even where they live–if you define an owned-home, health-insurance and two-parent childhood as working-class, as Taz has done here, you’ve got no chance of knowing the relative difference between that and the near-terminal uncertainty that people who live on the margin face every day.
from what i’ve heard from various folks who’ve attended shows and the behaviour i’ve seen at shows the taq scene has the same problems that mainstream music scenes have. the men are in charge and adored while women are treated like groupies. womanizing and using women is somehow excused because certain taq members are “nice guys.” also why is there no publicity or interviews with secret trail 5? boys are always praised for being creative but you don’t see much praise for creative women!
“Taz already said, they do perform with people of different ethnic/religious backgrounds” – could it be possible that this is done for opportunistic purposes? i’ve read the boys say it’s cool to urinate on the quran and that the prophet was a pedophile. if that’s their belief so be it. but then they play shows for an orthodox muslim audience, the very same people who would be offended by these comments. maybe they play with different ethnicities and diverse audiences for their own personal gain, to sell to sell cd’s and generate a larger fan base? and not because they genuinely want to be friends with people who believe in things they disagree with?
i’m not telling anyone to hate the taq scene. i’m just asking that the fans question some of the problematic elements in it rather than romanticizing it.
Nayagan, guess what! I know what a poor muslim looks like. I don’t know what you want out of me, a pay stub? A tax stub? Proof my father’s unemployed? Would you like to rummage through my garbage?
Imran and I have both lived in Pakistan for 7 years, on average, I lived their on a shoe string budget, rented out a room in a brothel, got everywhere on a Pakhero, and worked 16 hour days at TV channels. In America, playing gigs was always a labor of love – there is no money you get from it. It’s always just a way to plan out your weeks from one person’s couch to another’s basement, I don’t know if we’re poor muslims, we certainly live richly.
Brownie, Sena from Secret Trial 5 was offered interviews and documentaries back before she even had a line up for her band. We just rehearsed with them in Toronto, for our shows there tonight and tomorrow. ST5 was never ignored, I think it will pick up speed if they write more songs, and can fill a 40 minute set. And they will.
But it is a very male dominated space, and I’d like that too change.
Nayagan: can you allow for the possibility of the vanguard intellectual? perhaps the poor and dispossessed are too busy trying to get rich and possessed that they don’t have time to express their angst, so the vanguard artist must do it for them. plus, if we allow the poor to express themselves through art we’ll in all likelihood get something like bollywood musicals so better to let the relatively privileged do it instead, since from their privileged perch they can see oppression more clearly than those trapped within the platonic cave.
music sucks, band’s ideologically vapid.
you’re not helping islam. you’re just hurting rock n roll.
also, I’m glad Nayagan is here to articulate everything that I can’t on this topic.
he’s your own personal vanguard intellectual.
Nayagan wrote: I doubt they would know what a poor muslim looks like or even where they live–if you define an owned-home, health-insurance and two-parent childhood as working-class, as Taz has done here, you’ve got no chance of knowing the relative difference between that and the near-terminal uncertainty that people who live on the margin face every day.
Nayagan,
First of all to everyone at SM: Diwali Mubarak!
I agree with what you’re saying. This band definition of working class comes from Lexington, Mass., which is the whitest, most elite suburb in New England. So their definition probably means: not having an employer matched 401K or a BMW with more than 60K miles on it.
Regarding the reference to Pak Hero: Owning a motorbike in India/Pak is NOT poor, pal. It’s upper-middle class. Middle Class in these countries is about $1100/per capita.
really, only poor people are allowed to be disaffected? this is an asinine criticism. it’s one thing to say the music isn’t all that, or that their complaints are inauthentic, but it’s really silly to claim that they don’t have standing to talk about the topics they do talk about purely because they didnt come from crushing poverty (i am assuming that is the case). oppression olympics is about the silliest way to parse this kind of stuff.