Heavy Metal in Pakistan - Final Class Project

Heavy Metal in Pakistan - Final Project from Hassan Asif on Vimeo.

This video features three of the active underground heavy metal acts in Pakistan: Dionysus (Lahore, Death/Doom Metal), Takatak (Lahore, Groove Metal) and BlackHour (Islamabad, Thrash Metal). The video includes small extracts from the in-depth interviews conducted over a period of one year. In addition to these three bands various other heavy metal performers and online bloggers were interviewed to give this study a well-rounded approach. I also attended various performances and jam sessions of these bands. This research aims at studying how heavy metal is re-contextualized in Pakistan as a genre and as a social phenomenon. The analysis that is conducted in the written paper shows that, heavy metal music in Pakistan is essentially elitist in character and these musicians adopt/prefer this genre over other available options primarily because of its foreign-ness. These performers treat heavy metal as a labor of love, with no possible economic, or even cultural gains. The distinctly non-local nature of this kind of music allows the Pakistani youth, both performers as well as the audience, a means to craft and perform temporary alternate identities in the highly polarized Pakistani culture. In case of heavy metal, “foreign-ness” first restricts the access to the genre to a particular social class on the one hand, and re-contextualizes and transforms it during reproduction in an alien land on the other hand.

Coke Studio

Coke Studio has not only revived the Pakistani music industry but has given the cultural aspect of the music in the country a relatively new twist. Coke Studio is a Pakistani music television series sponsored by the Coca- Cola Company under the able watch of the renowned producer Rohail Hyatt (former member of the legendary pop act, Vital Signs). The show has developed some amazing pieces of fusion music over the course of its past five seasons.

Fusion music, in my opinion, is not a new concept. Fusion of various genres, for example, the Western contemporary rock with Eastern classical has been experimented by the likes of the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brooks. Then what is Coke Studio doing differently that these previous tries in the art of fusion did not accomplish?

First, Coke Studio’s name itself is a self-fulfilling prophecy of success. The partnership or support, if you may by a global brand like Coke is a definite marker of a comfortable jump-start by the musical venture. Throughout history Coke has come up with some of the most innovative and stylish ads.

Coke in Pakistan has always endorsed the strongest forms of material culture, that have been found to be relevant throughout generations, for example, the use of the sport of cricket in many of their advertisements. This provides a great marketing strategy for Coke, which uses the undying passion (non-material culture) for cricket (material culture) in Pakistan to spearhead their product in the market. As suggested in the first reading for the class (Youth Cultures in the Middle East), there is no denying that there is a relationship or overlap between the material and non-material cultures.

So swinging back to Coke Studio, such a partnership with Coke (who are always coming up with new advertising strategies) coupled with talented artists (ranging from the greatly revered performers like Atif Aslam, who have enjoyed immense success in Bollywood and folk singers such as Ata-Ullah Khan, who bring to life the ancient poetry of the Indus) from across the board in Pakistan is the pointer for Coke Studio’s success in Pakistan.

Second, as much as I have mentioned that fusion music is not a new concept, it does need its recognition as one of the core ingredients of Coke Studio’s success. Fusion music used by Coke Studio can be classified under the umbrella of glocalization and cultural hybridity. Robertson recognizes glocalization as ‘recontextualization of global phenomenon with respect to local cultures’. This is exactly what Coke Studio is doing. It merges the Western Pop/rock with the Eastern folk/classical to form this novel genre that reminisces somewhat of the psychedelic rock movement in the 1960s. This is not to say that the fusion music developed by Coke Studio is rip off of the psychedelic music but it is to put Coke Studio in a greater framework of glocalization and cultural hybridity which hints towards borrowing various aspects of foreign cultures. One example of such a musical piece from Coke Studio I find worth mentioning is:

This song incorporates various elements of Eastern folk and soul in the form of Qawwali combined with dominant use of Western instruments (electric guitar on WaWa pedal effect).

Third, Coke Studio has somewhat blurred the boundaries between the highbrow and the lowbrow culture. I am delivering this idea from my own observations and I have witnessed that music from Coke Studio has been played in low-key music stores in relatively low-income neighbourhoods on a high volume and I have also seen it being played during family gatherings of the upper class in some of the expensive hotels in Lahore. Qawwali in the Indian subcontinent is considered as the music of the people or the lower strata of the society. Rock music on the other hand is a relatively newer concept in Pakistan and is the music of the youth and the privileged half of the society. Coke Studio has developed a ‘common culture’ in the sense that both forms of music are not only accessible but also liked by the different social classes in Pakistan.

I think there are so many sociological and communications (media theory) layers to this cultural phenomenon in Pakistan that they cannot all be covered in a limited space. I leave you with some of the remarkable pieces produced by Coke Studio over the years so that you can get a taste of what this is all about:

 

Unfair

Are we born with a given social status? The answer to this question is yes. Each individual is born with a given status that is inherited. Classes tend to reproduce themselves over time. You are likely to be the same class as your parents. However, with time, you may experience a social mobility, going upward or downward in a social class system.



To relate to this idea, I recently had a wedding to attend. Therefore, I had to call a beauty technician to come over. Her name is Shevani. Shevani comes from a relatively low social class in Pakistan. When she came over, she got her whole kit with her in a small bag. Her English is perfect. I’m not sure why, but I found this to be very surprising to me, as most of the ones that work in salons here in Doha have broken English. I was very curious to know what her previous job was.



Whenever I decide to ask her about her English language, I hesitate doing so since it might offend her. Last time she came over she brought up the subject without me having to ask her. Shevani was talking about education and asked me when my Northwestern graduation is. Then she went on talking about her younger sisters that studied with her at the same school, but each of them had completely different personalities. Shevani was the one that got the excellent grades, and won several awards including the top in her country. Her sister’s classmates would keep asking her sister why couldn’t she be similar to Shevani.



Due to her high grades, she applied to one of the top prestigious universities in the UK and got accepted. Nevertheless, due to her social class, she was refused to go by the government. Curiosity was killing me, so I asked her why? She replied by saying that if they check that her bank account has less than 50,000 riyals, they would automatically refuse to let her go. Their belief is that if she goes to the UK she will reside there and get a well-paid job instead of pursuing her education and back.



I then asked her why she chose this job. She replied by saying that she loves the Qatari culture, and that all the customers she has are very nice. Shevani is very well educated but is socially stratified into this job. If she did go to the UK, she would experience a social mobility, going higher up the hierarchy. Nonetheless, since she does not have a university degree, her choices are limited.