The Kominas’ Usmani experiments with All Y’All

The rocker recently released an album in collaboration with high school buddy Siddarth Muralidhar.

LAHORE:

The bassist and lead singer of controversial Muslim punk band The Kominas, Basim Usmani is the bearer of a well-earned and deserving title — Pakistan’s true punk rocker. Currently residing in Boston, the rocker recently released a 17-track album in collaboration with high school buddy Siddarth Muralidhar. Known as All Y’All, the duo has experimented with a variety of sounds and moods, while staying true to their innate style of music.

“I think it’s meant to be my ‘soul’ career. The set up is vocals, bass and electronic music,” said Usmani about his latest project. “The name All Y’All is the concept — it’s literally calling out to everyone, irrespective of their differences. Soul music resonates like qawwali for me — it’s a universal concept of music which crosses lingual and cultural boundaries.”

Titled “You Got Me”, the album was released online in June on the duo’s website allyall.bandcamp.com. “Music itself is social-media technology — when songs become well-known, they basically go viral,” he said, justifying his decision to release the album online. “We make music to connect with people, so we decided to make it easily available as well.” Using this platform, Usmani has been able to escape the shackles of commercial music. “Internet is the only way to release music — if you don’t have an expensive drug habit, there’s no reason to allow record labels to own your work or likeability.”

While all the songs are written by Usmani and Muralidhar, the album is essentially a concoction of inspirations. The first track called “Chief” takes inspiration from Sajjad Ali’s single “Chief Saab” using its classic melody. “This album is more sampling-oriented,” he said. “However, I think art is always a re-creation of something. Thus, there are similarities and differences both.”

Consisting of hip hop and indie pop sounds, the album is fun, simplistic and easy on the ears. Commenting further on the duo’s choice of music, he said, “A lot of the lyrics I wrote, I was actually thinking about a benign extraterrestrial friend. The song ‘Siren’ is about love in the most universal sense.” Adding that a lot of the tracks were autobiographical for them, he said, “We chose music that we feel has become a part of us — rapping in ‘Try Love, Love is the Answer, B****!’ for instance.”

Speaking of what affected his love for different genres of music as he grew older, Usmani feels that he owes it to his surroundings. According to him, music provides cohesion in his life. Growing up in New York in the ‘80s, he recalls his father singing “Ek Ladki Ko Dekha” and when he turned 12, he was mesmerised by “Massive Attack”, which then diverted his attention to learning the bass guitar. His next phase was punk rock and hardcore music followed by a Jamaican dancehall and reggae phase.

“All these influences come together in my mind and my music,” he said, adding that punk rock is more of a way of life. “It’s the strength to be yourself — to do you. In the ‘90s, hip hop was all about doing your ‘thang’ [thing] and to me it’s the same thing. A malang dancing at Shah Jamal Darbarin in a chamkila kameez, is as punk as it gets.” Furthermore, he was also in tune with Punjabi singers such as Urdas Maan, Kuldeep Manak and Daler Mehndi due to his interaction with other desis residing in the US.

The Kominas’ days are not over for Usmani or the band. “I’m actually heading to Austria this week to play some gigs with the Kominas,” said Usmani. “We don’t want to force the release of our next album — we’ve earned the time and we’re taking it to create something fierce.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 29^th, 2012.

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