Was The Emperor Really Wearing Any Clothes?

I am glad that NFA got a break and was noticed
by Peter Gabriel. Plus Imran Khan, who used to refer to his
music a lot in his interviews. Come to think of it that is how people
become famous. Opinion leaders notice and promote a new talent
and other people check them out. That is natural. All of us
cannot be expected to immediately `connect` with a new idea.
Before the world became so much smaller, genius died unrecognized very often.
If some of us appear pretentious, so be it.

I first heard Nusrat Fateh Ali in reprise about five years ago while on holiday back home for a friends wedding. Me and the groom to be were sitting on the steps to a smoky basement listening to the band run through their selection for the big day, both slightly stoned on passive fumes from funny fags. The bass guitarist launched into ``Mast Qalander`` and we sat slightly stunned as he rolled into the chorus.

When I got back I bought all the CD’s I could get my hands on. After a month of frenzied listening, they were put on the shelf and pretty much ignored. Nothing really special, just another bit of music. When I heard about ``Passion`` I went and bought that too. Yes, I really liked it. The combination worked. Much darker than any of his other music and I didn’t have to feel inadequate about not understanding the lyrics because there weren’t too many of them. Synergy’s and all that. A couple of months later I put that on the shelf too, bought the movie (washout, IMHO) , decided I’d had enough suicidally gloomy music and went back to Floyd.

I was recently talked into auditioning a set of speakers. (Def. Tech. BP2000’s in case anyone cares). The test CD’s I took were Otis Redding’s Greatest, the Blues Traveller compilation, Dark Side of the Moon and because my wife insisted the system should render desi music accurately I grabbed Nusrat Fateh Ali’s ``Magic Touch``.

Okay, the speakers were amazing and I wound up buying them but the real surprise was that last disc. All the other music paled when you heard it with enough definition. The richness and breadth was astonishing. I sat listening to music shifting between counterpoint and resonance, as Nusrat’s voice ranged the scales more or less at will. Above all, there was an elegance and neatness to the music which had previously just registered as white noise. Clear, clean notes in the trebles that accentuated the dynamic tenor vocals. I particularly liked the way he could modulate his voice along the octave in a single breath. I’ve pulled out his other stuff and discovered that ``Magic Touch`` is far from his best.

My only gripe is that there is this one note at the high end of the octave, whether by design or intent, that he never seems to hit. Its a little like an itch you can’t scratch. (If anyone can tell me which note it is I would be deeply grateful, its been bothering me).

To be perfectly honest I don’t know ``Fusion`` from Adam, and am particularly ill-suited to argue the ramifications of the inherent mysticism implied in different oriental artists because, with a cynicism born of ignorance, I can’t really see it as a universal phenomenon (or a specific one for that matter). I do know I liked the music. I was impressed when I heard it accurately reproduced, and I agree with Rad, the method through which an audience is gathered is less relevant than the fact that they got to hear his music. But then, results are generally more pertinent than procedures wouldn’t you say?

More specifically, it is possible to grow out of an ineptitude in appreciating anything. It really is unnecessary to preclude a particular set of listeners if they fail to meet someone’s standards of emotional and auditory maturity. The music is not lessened by its auditors whatever their motives.

If there are ``many artists better than him`` out there I would love to get their names. If nothing else it will impress my wife terribly when I buy the music.

Re: radhika`s comments.

Excellent reply. You should write articles for
Chowk.

Re: radhika`s comments.

Excellent reply. You should write articles for
Chowk.

``Otherwise we as a nation are fully capable
of eulogizing even a gaddah [donkey] if it
is The Chosen One of the Western media.``

Not always. Benazir Bhutto`s favored western image has done little for her in the eyes of her homeland
There is truth in what you say, but is it simply the fact that we are here - like fish out of water - grasping for pride in our homelands, that makes us so overly eager?
It would be instructive to see how europeans living in Pakistan and India cling to things of there homeland, without a clue as to what it really means. Are they subject to the same behavior?

Nice commentary. And short (all articles should be restricted to this length).
It IS interesting how American e.g. scorn everything unamerican
whereas we... but I meander into almost cliched territory
without offering any suggestions for change - another
distinguishing Pakistani Characteristic.

Who is the bigger gaddah. The gaddah that glorifies the gaddah per habit or the gaddah who
forever condemns the gaddahs for this khotee habit of theirs: beating a dead gaddah to death -
which is what I am doing now.

Noam Chomsky would be proud of you. And not
without valid reason.