Riz Ahmed pays homage to Pakistani roots in his latest track

'It’s a message to anyone who feels unwanted right now,' Ahmed said

British-Pakistani rapper turned actor, Riz Ahmed has released his latest track, Mogambo - a homage to his Pakistani roots. The song opens with Ahmed rapping over intense tabla beats.

“They put their boots in our ground/ In put my roots in their ground/ And I put my truth in this sound/ I spit my truth, and it’s brown,” he raps.

“It’s a message to anyone who feels unwanted right now,” Ahmed told Variety. “It took me a long time to realise that the same reasons you might be excluded are the same things that you should be proud of about yourself. That’s really what it’s about… I hope it connects with people.”

SCREENGRAB

"Brown men usually shown as insane and scary, or weak and meek. Rarely as complex, contradictory, and fully human. But these guys will kick your ass while wearing floral underwear," the Venom star posted on Instagram.

The title of the track hails from a famous Bollywood villain of the same name. “He’s from this classic film called Mr India that was out in 1987 which I was watching when I was like five years old,” Ahmed explained during a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “And he’s got the best catch phrase… it’s really quite simple - it’s ‘Mogambo khush hua.’”

SCREENGRAB

Ahmed paired Mogambo with Bassam Tariq’s thought provoking video, which features a wrestling match filmed in Pakistan. Talking about it, the director of the video said their initial thought for the song was a “glamourised and intentionally composed video that challenged ideas of masculinity.”

But they changed course after reviewing their footage from Pakistan. "Our initial idea was a glamourised and intentionally composed video that challenged ideas of masculinity but after looking back at footage Riz and I shot in Pakistan, we realised that there is a raw energy that we can never recreate," Tariq commented.

SCREENGRAB

"So we decided to make the footage work and embrace the pedestrian nature of it. It’s tough for my ego to put something out that feels rough around the edges but throughout the edit the footage kept telling me that we are enough to keep viewers interested. We don’t need to be flashy to have people like us. We are perfectly imperfect – shaky compositions and soft focus and all," added the director.