The past week and a half post-election have been heavy with feelings of uncertainty and fear that kept seeming to become more awfully real with every report of hate towards members of marginalized groups and unnerving transition team choices. Thankfully, for a few hours over two nights in Brooklyn and New York City, Swet Shop Boys provided a small escape for crowds at their sold out shows. While everyone in attendance could not completely forget that a fight is being fought outside the venues, messages in Swet Shop Boys’ music along with their opening bands The Kominas and Humeysha provided a reminder that there are so many voices that will fight and continue to demand to be heard.
The Kominas, Rough Trade NYC, November 17.
On Thursday, November 17th, Rough Trade was packed tight for the first of two Swet Shop Boys shows in the area. The Kominas, a punk band from Boston comprised of Pakistani-American members, opened the night with just the right feeling to get everyone ready for the show. Their songs cover a range of topics from being brown and Muslim to other political matters, and they had a dedicated group in the crowd yelling out requests throughout their set. Between playing songs from their 2015 album Stereotype like “See Something, Say Something” and “Banana” and older songs like “Disco Uncle” and “Sharia Law in the USA,” the band kept high spirits with jokes and laughter. At one point they happily commented on how many brown people were in the crowd to cheers, which was a great feeling. Also equally a great feeling was singing along to “Eid Mubarak” after a supermoon. Even after the band shared a story of recent blatant airport racism on their way back from Norway to remind us how utterly wrong the state of things continues to be, the mood of The Kominas’ set never really wavered from anything that felt like a celebration of being together.
Swet Shop Boys, Rough Trade NYC, November 17.
Swet Shop Boys came on stage with a force. I’ve told anyone who will listen that Cashmere is easily my number one album of the year, and to see it performed live was incredible. Yelling certain lyrics along with Riz MC and Heems felt so cathartic, especially right away when they started the set with “T5” and singing the chorus of “Oh, no, we’re in trouble / TSA always wanna burst my bubble” about racial profiling at airports. Similarly in “Swish Swish” yelling “they still racial profilin'" along with Heems. Even though I knew the evening was bound to be emotional for its own reasons, I was taken about by my own tears during “Aaja” and then the quiet “oh no” I heard from the friend I was with at the raw emotion in Riz’s voice during “Half Moghul Half Mowgli.” The one moment I was not expecting that definitely carried an incredibly heavy weight was at the very end of the set, when the encore was complete and Heems told Riz to recite a poem and left the stage with Redhino. Riz launched into “Sour Times” from his album MICroscope, and the words felt more poignant than ever
Humeysha, The Studio at Webster Hall, November 18.
The next night on Friday the 18th, while Webster Hall’s main venue hosted some other party-type event, another audience dominated by brown people crowded into the basement venue of The Studio at Webster Hall for that night’s sold out show. Humeysha opened the night with music combining Indian, Pakistani, and American backgrounds into some truly beautiful sounds. Each of Humeysha’s songs have a fleshed out ambience to them that feel like their own experience, with lyrics sometimes going between English and Hindi-Urdu, such as in single “For Love, From the Law.” I’ll admit, I had not heard of Humeysha until seeing that the band was set to open for this show, and I am so extremely glad that they did. After hearing the aforementioned single, I immediately bought the album and felt thankful that I would be able to see them live so soon after. The atmospheric music may at first have felt out of place to be the opening act for Swet Shop Boys' beats and cutting rap, but it did feel just right and was another wonderful moment of POCs coming together with music.
Swet Shop Boys, The Studio at Webster Hall, November 18.
While some of the crowd was probably at the show the night before, there were plenty of people who were not, and the energy was still high when Swet Shop Boys came on stage. Several of the moments from the night before were mirrored at the Webster Hall show with enthusiastic yelling and reception of lyrics. “Look Zayn Malik's got more than eighty virgins on him / There's more than one direction to get to paradise” is one of those parts from the track named after the former boy band member that got such a response both nights. Heems and Riz playfully sang the romantic Hindi-Urdu chorus of “Aaaja” to each other and they also tried to convince each other to dance. Both of them took their shoes off appropriately during “Shoes Off” while Riz carried his around as he performed. Cheers sounded when Riz and Heems asked for the brown people in the crowd, and at one point Riz reminded us that he’s still the same him today no matter what’s going on out in the world.
After spending days after the election feeling lost and near tears and occasionally letting myself just cry in disbelief, walking out of the Rough Trade show filled me with such a strong feeling of comfort and pride. Both shows together made those emotions even stronger. I’m a Pakistani immigrant to the U.S., and I go to a fairly high number of concerts. These two shows were probably the two most important ones of the year for me, and I went to some pretty damn important shows for myself. South Asians on stage performing utilizing our languages and elements of our cultural music to convey messages about the problems we face to audiences filled with brown faces dancing and singing/yelling the words back at them. These are the most beautiful moments I will probably experience in 2016.
