Author Archives: Taz

About Taz

Taz is an activist, organizer and writer based in California. She is the founder of South Asian American Voting Youth (SAAVY), curates MutinousMindState.tumblr.com and blogs at TazzyStar.blogspot.com. Follow her at twitter.com/tazzystar

Get Drugged By Lazarus

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I don’t know if you realize this, but there’s a lot of bad music out there, particularly bad music by Desi artists. I’ve been pretty consistent with these Music Monday posts at Sepia Mutiny for the past six months, and the only requirement I have is that the musician or song that I profile has the be something that I myself would download on to my iTunes and embarrassingly blast loudly in my car. That being said, I have to dig through a lot of ear bleeding songs to get to one that really moves me. But I get so excited when I find something that I want to share.

lazarus.jpg

Today’s #MusicMonday comes through an interview I found at Brown Girl Magazine of the doctor-hyphen-rapper out of Detroit, Lazarus. A Pakistani-American artist, his lyrics are conscious and gritty, and his beats are Detroit ferocious.

With over a million views on the above video, I clearly have learned about Lazarus after all the other kids have. I kind of love how he is unapologetic about pursuing his medical degree and a rap career at the same time, as can be heard in his song “Living the Dream.” Ain’t no shame in improving yourself. Lazarus dropped a mixtape called Lazarus Story this past September, which can be downloaded for FREE online through this link right here. Continue reading →

Dancing in the Streets, Mumbai Eshtyle

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What would happen if a Bollywood Desi boy fell for a Brooklyn Gori girl, all on the streets of Mumbai? (h/t Girish)

Bachna Ae Haseeno (BollyBrook Remix) from Anne Marsen on Vimeo.

Va, va, va….How charming. Reminds me of the story where that white girl in India got married to the rickshaw driver. Remember that story? Not so far from the real life, na?

BollyBrook is short for Bollywood Meets Brooklyn. This unofficial guerrilla music video for Bachna Ae Haseeno (Hindi: बचना ऐ हसीनो) was shot through the streets of Mumbai, India in four days during mid-March 2011. In English, “Bachna Ae Haseeno” means something like “Save yourself, pretty girls.”[bollybrook]

And some words from th actress playing the hipster…

Being white in India, even Mumbai, invites a lot of stares in itself, so for a white person to walk around with an obnoxious attitude and an accessory as impractical as empty frame ray bands was just a hilarious image for me…I also wanted to compare and contrast this with the character of Bollywood Boy. Both characters are obnoxious in their own ways and they find that after they get over themselves that they can develop a genuine connection and friendship with one another. [bollybrook]

Do you like? Is it fun and playful or stereotypes gone wrong? Continue reading →

Not So Special

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HomelandSecurity.jpgI wasn’t always a an activist in the South Asian community. I got my grounding in environmental organizing and it took the events around September 11th, 2001 to really catapult me into trying to figure out how to create that political voice for this community. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, since the capture/death of Osama Bin Laden on Sunday night.

One of the first, if not the first, forms of advocacy I partook in for the South Asian community was around “Special Registration” otherwise known as National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS). I was living Washington D.C. at the time, and we would go around to Pakistani and Indian restaurants and grocery stores and drop off 3-fold flyers at the front counter informing the community of the new and xenophobic law. It wasn’t much, but at the time it was so important that we let the South Asian community know what their changed rights were in light of the then newly created Department of Homeland Security.

Special Registration required boys and men, ages 16 to 45 from a list of 25 countries with large Muslim populations to register at immigration offices or ports of entry. As a result, 84,000 males were fingerprinted, photographed, and questioned in long interviews based on their countries of origin, more than 13,000 were put into deportation proceedings, and 2,800 were detained. [san]

There were so many stories I heard of where South Asian boys and men in the community had to flee and some scary stories where people simply disappeared. Only later were they found to have been detained.

The impact was felt especially by working-class South Asian, Arab, Sikh and Muslim communities in New York City; the economic impact of losing fathers, sons, and husbands meant that many families suddenly faced homelessness. The Muslim community in Coney Island is said to have lost a full third of its population almost overnight. In its later phases, NSEERS focused on U.S. ports of entry, with the same haphazard scrutiny and interrogations. [illume]

On April 28th 2011, after nine years of “Special Registration”, the government has quietly suspended the law. Continue reading →

The Cinematic Soundtrack of Karsh Kale

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cinema.jpgEver feel like you need a cinematic soundtrack to your day to day life? Karsh Kale’s Cinema may be for you.

The album exploded on the scene last week, going straight to number #1 in the charts. No surprise considering Karsh Kale has been a revolutionary voice to the on the scene for quite sometime. Kale got his start in a rock band, is known for his phenomenal tabla skills, worked in collaboration with the talented Anoushka Shankar in 2007 and most recently has been using his skills to soundtrack movies, such as with Ajay Naidu’s Ashes. It’s no surprise then, with his recent film scoring experiences that he chose to name his latest release, Cinema.

As one of the first groundbreaking genre busting artists in what is now an established musical fusion genre, Karsh Kale can only be referred to as legendary. The album Cinema takes listeners on a cinematic journey, each song reflecting a different emotion and journey. But instead of telling you about the music, how about listening to the music and deciding for yourself. And of course, download the song **Mallika Jam* for free below. The entire album is available on iTunes.

What makes Karsh Kale tick? I wanted to know. Check out the interview with Karsh Kale, and just to mix it up, I asked him to answer in triplicates. Read it below!

What are three words you’d use to describe your 4th solo album, Cinema?

Progressive, Nostalgic, Journey

What were your top three favorite moments in creating this album, Cinema?

  • The day the art work by Archan Nair arrived.
  • The day I finished the final mix w Illinton.
  • The day the album was released at reached #1 on Tunes World Chart. Continue reading →

Summer of Solidarity

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final1.jpgDClogo.jpgWhen I was a teen, I knew that I wanted to make a difference in the world. I just didn’t know how. I was lucky enough to attend a week long summer campaign training when I was in college which catapulted me into the world of advocacy and organizing in the environmental movement. It wasn’t until years later that similarly themed advocacy camps for the South Asian American youth community started popping up. I was grateful for my journey, but always wish I could have had access to more at a younger age.

This July there are two 4-day camps for Desi teens, both camps taking youth through a curriculum around identity, social advocacy and connecting with local activists. The first one is DC Desi Summer, based in Washington DC. The second is one I’ve been volunteering with, the Bay Area Solidarity Summer (BASS) which is a project of the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA).

On July 22nd, South Asian American teenagers from across the San Francisco Bay Area will convene for a life-changing experience. The youth will be attending the first ever Bay Area Solidarity Summer (BASS), a four-day leadership camp for youth of South Asian heritage seeking to learn about progressive issues, gain organizing skills, connect with other South Asian activists, and develop themselves into leaders. The all-inclusive camp will provide space for young people to learn skills on how to be a social activist, as well as learn about issues affecting the South Asian community both locally and globally.

BASS is open to youth of South Asian heritage ranging in age from 14 to 19 years old. The camp costs only $50, which covers all housing and food expenses for four days and three nights. Held in the beautiful Center for Third World Organizing Training and Retreat Center (often described as the “CTWO Mansion”), the intense camp will cover a wide range of issues such as Creative Arts and Action, Racial Profiling, Hip Hop Revolutionaries, and Environmental Justice. An important component of the curriculum will be a look back at the 100 years of history of South Asian Bay Area student activism.[bass] Continue reading →

Sterilizing History [Updated]

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AZ memorial.jpgWhat is up with Arizona? There was SB 1070, and the shooting of Gabby Giffords. And now, there is this. (via SALDEF)

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is signing a bill to remove Balbir Singh Sodhi’s name from the state’s 9/11 memorial and sell his memorial plaque as scrap metal. [saldef]

Balbir Singh Sodhi was the one of the first victim to a post 9/11 hate crime.

[He]was a Mesa, Arizona, gas station owner who was murdered in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He made headlines because he was the first of several cases across the United States that were reported to the police as acts of retaliation for the terrorist attacks

On September 15, 2001, Frank Roque shot him five times, killing him instantly. Roque, who apparently wanted revenge for September 11, confused him for a person of Arab ethnicity because of the clothes he wore, his turban, and his beard. Within 25 minutes of his death, the Phoenix police reported four further attacks on people who either were Middle Easterners or who dressed with clothes thought to be worn by Middle Easterners. [wiki]

How could anyone object that Sodhi’s death was not a directly connected to the events of September 11th?

The bill, which passed both houses on party-line votes, was sponsored by Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, who said Monday that he did only a cursory Internet search on Singh Sodhi’s murder. Kavanagh said it was unclear to him that the shooting was directly related to 9/11.

“He was the victim of a madman. He was not a 9/11 victim,” Kavanagh said. “I don’t mean to (dismiss) what happened to this individual. I don’t mean to trivialize it.” Continue reading →

20/20 or Sex Ray?

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Sex Ray Vision.png

Count on the West Coast to turn out an Asian/South Asian pop dance remix duo for today’s #MusicMonday.(h/t Ennis. Seriously.)

Sex Ray Vision is a pop/dance band out of Stanford University. The group consists of two computer science majors at Stanford, producer Ravi Parikh and vocalist/songwriter Brian Yoo. They’ve been making music for over a year ever since they met as roommates with a goal of getting you to dance through the power of catchy pop hooks and hot beats. [freshnewtracks]

The songs are fresh sounding, rich with youthful fun and has this electro-pop production with an autotuned 80s music feel. You can listen and download their mixtape Sextape Vol. 1 off their soundcloud (below) for FREE and, according to their website SexRayVisionMusic.com, they’re dropping a new song every week. “Need Someone” has got to be the catchiest song in this mix but I simply can’t get “Under the Moonlight” out of my head.

Sextape Vol. 1 – Get Down by sexrayvision

Shucks, I wish I could get autotuned. Everything sounds better autotuned. Continue reading →

Before He Was Osho

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Rajneesh.jpg Last month, a group of us were sitting at Currylicious drinking chai and discussing the recent article that had come out about Bikram Choudhury of THE Bikram Yoga. Bikram, apparently, is prone to a “free-loving” nature with his yoga followers or as stated in the title of the article, it is an “Overheated, Over-sexed Cult.”

“Well, that’s not too surprising…” someone mentioned. “It sounds like the Osho Ashram in India where you need to get STD tests before entering.” That’s when our conversation took an interesting turn. The Osho Ashram they were talking about is located in Pune, India. Established in 1974, it was the place where Osho made his eventual return in the 1980s and his final resting spot when he passed away in 1990. But before Osho was known as Osho the “sex guru” of India, he was known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh the “Rolls-Royce guru” of Oregon.

That’s right, I said it. Oregon. In the early 1980s Rajneesh and his 2,000 followers set up camp in the ranch lands of Eastern Oregon at a place they named Rancho Rajneesh. The story that ensues has all the twists and turns of a Hollywood big screen hit. This past weekend, The Oregonian wrote up a fascinating five part expose of the Rajneeshees rise and fall, 25 years later. They have colorfully eerie photos from the days of the city’s hey days and have a great collection of documents archiving this bizarre story. I’ve always known that there has been a rich history of traveling gurus coming to America, but this was hardly what I had in mind.

Thousands dressed in red, worked without pay and idolized a wispy-haired man who sat silent before them. They had taken over a worn-out cattle ranch to build a religious utopia. They formed a city, and took over another. They bought one Rolls-Royce after another for the guru — 93 in all.

Along the way, they made plenty of enemies, often deliberately. Rajneeshee leaders were less than gracious in demanding government and community favors. Usually tolerant Oregonians pushed back, sometimes in threatening ways. Both sides stewed, often publicly, before matters escalated far beyond verbal taunts and nasty press releases. [theoregonian]

The story started when Osho/Rajneesh escaped India after a crackdown on his smuggling and tax fraud. His chief of staff was the 31 yr old Ma Ananda Sheela. Continue reading →

Royal Shaadi

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Seems that you can’t go anywhere without hearing about the royal nuptials of Prince William and Cate Middleton. The wedding is only two weeks away on Friday April 29th. The date can’t come soon enough. And, accordingly, let the onslaught of tribute viral videos commence. (h/t Sugi)

Bollywood dancing for the royal wedding? Can it be? Well, it’s not so far from the truth – it seems that choreographer Sandip Soparrkar and his wife have been invited to do the last dance at the reception, a “Bollywood Waltz.” I haven’t seen to many waltzes in my lifetime, but I’m truly curious as to how they are going to Bollywood-ify it.

Are there any other Desi angles to this wedding? Have diamonds for the wedding ring come from mines in Sri Lanka? Is Bobby Friction DJ-ing at the wedding after party? Will you be playing a drinking game of “Spot the Desi” during the late night live feed of the wedding next Friday? Do you really care about this wedding? Or are you more interested in Rajiv’s beach wedding extravaganza to Vimi aka hottie Noureen DeWulf in the season finale of Outsourced on May 12? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Continue reading →

Desis Rap to Hip Hop Beats

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Hip Hop Desis.jpgWhile meandering through City Lights Bookstore late last year, I recognized a face on the cover of a book. This never happens. Especially in the Asian American Studies section of the bookstore. It was the one and only Chee Malabar posturing on the cover of Hip Hop Desi: South Asian Americans, Blackness, and a Global Race Consciousness (Refiguring American Music) written by Nitasha Tamar Sharma. Though I didn’t buy the book, a quick glance at the pages revealed a few familiar names, from Rukus Avenue to D’Lo to some other names I didn’t recognize. I stumbled across another book recently also covering the Desi hip hop scene. (Is this a trend?) Desi Rap: Hip Hop and South Asian America is a collection of essays by people from the scene and edited by Ajay Nair and Murali Balaji. With essays by Vijay Prashad, Sunaina Maira, the1shanti and DJ Rekha, this is a book on the top of my must read list right now. And of course, Chee Malabar also contributed an essay to this book.

Which leads me today’s #MusicMonday – a remix leaked by Chee Malabar. He is back in the studio, working on a forthcoming album scheduled to come out late this year. Orange Suit Theory is a remix of the Jay Electronica beat found through this link. But in my opinion, Chee’s remix is done so much better and throws a political spin to the bling-ified chest thumping original lyrics. Plus, Chee used “macaca”. Extra points for that. Get your free download below.

If this song reflects Chee’s progression as a hip hop artist, I can’t wait for the new album to drop.

I’d also love to hear from readers who have read Hip Hop Desi or Desi Rap and get a review. Are there any other similarly themed books out there as well? Continue reading →