So, you might've been really into Major Lazer and DJ Snake’s song featuring MØ “Lean On” and might have enjoyed its culturally appropriative video that utilized Indian culture as an accessory. Hopefully no one enjoyed Iggy Azalea’s “Bounce” and its video that also used Indian culture as a prop. Coldplay and Beyonce’s video for “Hymn for the Weekend” has problems as well, no matter how many times Chris Martin visits India. Selena Gomez wore a bindi, and at least most people understood why the hell that was wrong. Except she responded to the controversy in the worst way by posting a selfie in a sari and bindi with the caption “Sari, not sari.”

But that whole mess is its own discussion. It seems Western musicians think implanting Indian culture into their music videos and photos adds some fun color. South Asians are getting representation in music as the background in music videos. Other times it is a sample or soundbite added into a song for some BONUS! exotic beats and sounds. Other aspects of pop-culture, television and film, already have a steadily growing presence of South Asian actors. Mindy Kaling and Aziz Ansari are two of the most well-known comedians, and Bollywood actors Priyanka Chopra and Irrfan Khan are breaking into American television and film respectively. South Asians are receiving some representation on screen, but they are still often the background and added decoration in music. Maybe this is a result of a lack of South Asian musicians in popular music to begin with, but we thankfully live in a time now where two well-known artists happen to be South Asian.

Pretty much everyone loves “Paper Planes” by M.I.A., right? Opinions about Zayn Malik probably vary from person to person covering the range of “ugh, don’t care” to “I LOVE HIM!” The important thing right now is that they are two of the most prominent South Asian musicians to non-South Asian audiences. M.I.A. has had her Sri Lankan culture featuring strongly since first breaking into the music scene in the early 2000s, and since departing from One Direction in 2015, Zayn has been able to finally embrace his Pakistani heritage in the music he creates. His song in Urdu, “INTERMISSION: fLoWeR,” was one of the best surprise musical moments of the year.

In a time with Islamaphobia in a presidential election and the dissemination of Hindu traditions as trends, seeing M.I.A. and Zayn create a song together is wonderful. You have M.I.A. doing her thing declaring “I’m a swagger man / Rolling in my swagger van / From the People’s Republic of Swaggerstan.” Then Zayn sings the chorus, but even better than that, his harmonizations that feature throughout the song sound like they take inspiration from classical Indian/Pakistani songs, similar to what he does in “INTERMISSION: fLoWeR.”During the interview on BBC Radio 1 where she debuted the song, M.I.A. said she recently finished filming a music video for it in the Himalayas, which hopefully indicates that it will be a proper single from her upcoming album “AIM.” The ideal situation leads to “Freedun” becoming a huge hit and allowing everyone to hear and see two South Asians that they are already familiar with coming together with a song that embraces aspects of their own cultures. In a musical landscape where it’s difficult to find South Asian representation, “Freedun” creates it.