[Reader-list] Pakistani hip hop?
Paul Miller
anansi1 at earthlink.net
Wed Jan 7 05:38:48 IST 2009
Gasp - I guess it's time for Sarai to start writing theses on global
hybridity, eh?
Youtunbe:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5RxgiLARd5I
and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7813478.stm
Strangely moving, but weird, nonetheless...
Paul
The elder daughter of Pakistan's assassinated former Prime Minister,
Benazir Bhutto, has written a rap song expressing grief over her death.
The song by Bakhtawar Bhutto, 18, comes a year after the assassination
and is entitled "I would take the pain away".
It pays tribute to her mother's "crazy courage" and describes her as
"the epitome of benevolence".
It has been played regularly on state-run television and has been
posted on the video-sharing website YouTube.
'Weeping'
"My mother was murdered. I don't even comprehend. Was it worth dying
for? I'm walking through screened doors," Bakhtawar sings in English.
Bakhtawar Bhutto
You had beauty and intelligence, everything you did was relevant
Bakhtawar Bhutto's lyrics in "I would take the pain away"
Obituary: Benazir Bhutto
Life in pictures: Benazir Bhutto
"No comfort or ease. I'm begging you please, God bless the deceased,"
she laments in the song.
Praising her mother's "beauty and intelligence", the song says that
the "whole world is weeping" over the murder.
"Shot in the back of your ear, so young in 54th year, murdered with
three kids left behind, a hopeless nation without you, you are in all
their hearts," it says.
The teenager, a student at Edinburgh University, then repeats the
chorus line "I would take the pain away".
A video to accompany the song shows footage and photographs of her
smiling mother while election campaigning shortly before her death in
Rawalpindi in December 2007 and of public grieving after her death.
Ms Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack on her convoy - blamed
on Islamic militants - as it travelled through the city's Liaquat Bagh
park. She had just finished addressing an election rally.
Information Minister Sherry Rehman - who for several years was an aide
to Ms Bhutto - told the Reuters news agency that Bakhtawar wrote the
lyrics and music while studying in Edinburgh.
"It's a tribute of a grieving daughter to her iconic and loving
mother," she said.
Ms Rehman said that while music was a hobby for Bakhtawar, she had no
plan to pursue it as a career.
The song has had mixed reviews in the British press.
"While her dirge-like rap is unlikely to secure her a Grammy, the
seemingly heartfelt tribute might win her some fans," The Independent
newspaper says.
The Guardian says that she uses the song to "pour out her anguish".
Ms Bhutto's widower and Bakhtawar's father, Asif Ali Zardari, became
president of Pakistan in September.
Their son, Bilawal, 20, studies at Oxford University in the UK and
another daughter, Aseefa, 14, also studies abroad.
More information about the reader-list
mailing list