When you bring boundless creativity, politics, intellectual expression, and a desire to humour and entertain a culturally diverse audience, you get Swet Shop Boys’ debut LP ‘Cashmere’.
We recently caught Londoners Redinho (Tom Calvert) and Riz MC (Riz Ahmed), and New Yorker Heems (Himanshu Suri), perform their entire new album to an intimate crowd at Birthdays Dalston as part of their US/ UK tour. The night was electric, with an audience made up mainly of Londoners but also some die-hard fans from Europe who had travelled especially to catch the Boys live.
The album is without a doubt a success. Rave reviews are aplenty, each one celebrating the timing of its release. In the year of Brexit, Trump and increasing alt-right sentiment, here’s a truly fresh sound, thanks to the album’s producer Redinho, with hard messages reflecting the experiences and angst of not just South Asian diaspora like Riz and Heems themselves, but young people from multicultural communities everywhere in 2016. Like a lot of good hip hop and grime, everything about this album is political, the title, the timing, the lyrics, the track names, the artists, which means Cashmere makes for not just pleasurable, but purposeful listening.
Riz MC making a fashion statement on tour with the Swet Shops Boys in London
What angst are we talking about here? Much of it is a hard punch in the face of racial profiling, and post 9/11 airport experiences. Possibly the most popular track on the album is T5:
Oh no, we’re in trouble/
TSA always wanna burst my bubble/
Always getting random checks when I rock this stubble.
The title of Phone Tap says it all, as Riz raps:
I know they’re tappin’ up my camera phone/
I hear weird noises when man’s at home…
and
No new friends in case they’re undercover snakes/
Stares on the plane, guess it’s just another day…
You can catch the boys’ live performance of Phone Tap for the BBC Asian Network here.
Then there’s No Fly List and Shoes Off, which fades out with the unmistakable, hostile voice of the TSA bellowing those two words through US airport security.
In Half Moghul Half Mowgli, Riz vocalises the paradox of provoking both inspiration and hate among his audience. On the one hand young Pakistanis telling him he’s the reason they chose to get an education, on the other, hearing he’s “propaganda posing as feature flicks, and your rhymes sound gay and your beats are shit.” This is as raw and personal as it gets, and it’ll be interesting to observe how Riz Ahmed maintains his identity as an outspoken rap artist and writer, as his fame reaches new heights with the latest Star Wars film, Rogue One.
But it’s not all politics. Cashmere is sentimental and playful – much of which comes from Heems. He honours the kitsch of Bollywood and nods to the idiosyncracies of South Asian culture. How many Brooklyn rappers can pull off wearing embroidered Indian shawls and break out into nifty dance routines? The crowd at Birthdays absolutely loved his style and it’s easy to see why. In No Fly List he recalls reactions to his career choice:
Trying to make some culture so I’m good when the Karma hits.
A relatable line for any young Asian who has taken the unconventional path in life. Like Riz, Heems also has creative projects besides Swet Shop Boys – he’s just created an art installation for New York’s Aicon Gallery from his archive of Bollywood cassette tapes. Go on, say it: “How cool, now why didn’t I think of that?!”
There’s plenty of sex and romance on the album too; especially in Tiger Hologram and the hugely popular Aaja, which is the closest thing to a pop track on the album. It’s impossible to resist the somewhat generic but still comfortingly familiar Urdu lyrics, and catchy tune of the hook sung by Pakistan’s ghazal posterboy Ali Sethi – his vocals nicely break up the rap.
There’s so much to say about Cashmere – it has melody and meaning, it’s lyrically clever and it defies categorisation. Go ahead and have a listen – we challenge you not to hit the repeat button, or to feel more alive as a result. It’s available to download on iTunes here, and you can listen to it on the Swet Shop Boys’ website here.
By Sona Hathi.
Sona is a researcher and consultant from London. She’s hedonistic when it comes to Design, Arts and Culture, particularly the South Asian variety. She gives back through journalistic writing and the occasional kathak performance.
Posted on 21 December 2016