Sajid and Zeeshan Freestyle Frenzy!
[ in focus]

If there is anyone making waves on the Pakistani music scene these days, it is two guys called Sajid and Zeeshan. And if there is anything billed to zip up the charts at lightening speed, it is their debut album titled One light year at snail speed.


You're not a rockstar,
But you can see yourself up there.
Under the bright light
You feel you're the reason.
(Chorus)
So throw away that bag of gold,
Listen to what your music holds.
It's a melody only you can feel,
You're about to be the King of Self.


—taken from King of Self
by Sajid and Zeeshan


I still remember the first time I had heard this song —on the radio. What followed was three consecutive, sleepless nights scanning international music channels hoping to catch its video being aired. Needless to say I wasn’t successful.

The next time I heard it I was at a local radio station while I was having a chat with a friend. The conversation that ensued went somewhat like this:

BB: whose song is this?!
Friend: Sajid and Zeeshan.
BB: No, the song that’s playing right now!
Friend: Sajid and Zeeshan
BB: I’m not asking about Sajid and Zeeshan, I’m asking about this song, the one that’s playing!
Friend: that is Sajid and Zeeshan!
BB: *incredulously* Desi?
Friend: yes, Sajid and Zeeshan.

One year later, they release their debut album, One Light Year at Snail Speed —the pre-launch gig plus the press conference that followed were both worth going to. Where an artiste/musician in Pakistan now has a host of record labels to launch their album through, Sajid and Zeeshan manage to bag EMI International as their record label. And EMI decides to make their comeback in Pakistan with them.

Hosted at a local club in Karachi, Sajid and Zeeshan’s pre-launch gig took off almost an hour late —early by most standards. The backdrop, which should have been slightly bigger in order to cover the wall, displayed a blown-up photo of their album, designed by Zeeshan himself, and a photo of Sajid and Zeeshan.

The event had its share of surprise visitors. Alamgir who had been jamming for his upcoming performance at the The Musik Awards with Shallum, Khaldi, Gumby and Emu also attended the launch with them. Well known recluses, Rohail Hyatt from The Vital Signs and Nadeem Farooq Paracha came out of their shells to attend the event. Looking around, you could see people casually walking in, in one corner Sajid and Zeeshan were giving some televised comments on one thing or the other, little groups of television-familiar faces having little conversations in another. Everything was set for them to perform and nobody knew what to expect. Keeping in mind the craziness that had preceded the launch itself, I kept my fingers crossed.

The gig officially started with Sajid and Zeeshan performing Freestyle Dive and without exaggeration, they rocked everyone’s pants off. For those who don’t know, Freestyle Dive is the song for the animated-cartoon video (directed by Zeeshan Parwez) depicting a moustached man on his way to robbing a bank, during which we get a picture of how his life would have been had he chosen not to. The video itself has been nominated for several awards and bagged a couple.

Getting back to the launch, from the moment Sajid opened his mouth to sing and Zeeshan started to work his magic on the gadgets that surrounded him, they managed to throw everyone’s preconceived notions about Sajid and Zeeshan completely off balance, even mine. I was shocked. In a good way, but shocked nonetheless. They weren’t just good, they were brilliant and the expressions on the faces of those who attended and the chatter that I was met with, post-launch, confirmed that I was not the only one who shared this opinion.

Here is a bit more of ‘the revealing’: Zeeshan can sing, really. I swear. His vocal-talents are not limited to singing mock-raags while amongst friends now and then, he really can sing. He provided the backing vocals to Sajid’s powerhouse performance in —most notably— Freestyle Dive and a couple of other songs.

Also contributing to the ‘wow’ effect was Zeeshan producing the turn table scratch sound by waving his hand over a sound effect module, which had motion-sensors via an infra-red ray. The infra-red ray would detect movement in the air above it and would therefore produce the desired sound-effect.

Sajid and Zeeshan performed a total of nine songs some of which were Free and Underestimated, Glue, Changes, My Happiness, Deserts, Have to let go sometime, All this time and the song that officially launched them on the tube, King of Self. Before performing each song, Sajid would talk a little about the song and what it was about. Hence, Glue became a song about “that something that binds people together” and so on and so forth.

The song Deserts had been written by Fasi Zaka, Zeeshan’s cousin and host of On the Fringe (OTF) —also a Zeeshan Parwez production. A mellow, soulful number, the song reflected a difficult time in Fasi’s life. This is also the song in which Sajid whipped out his harmonica from nowhere and launched into a little solo.

Following that, Zeeshan soon revealed that Sajid was not the only one who was harmonica-friendly. In Glue, Zeeshan blew into a mouth organ that was attached to a keyboard, and which resulted in ‘the harmonica effect’.

The duo had initially planned to finish the gig off with a jazzed-up version of King of Self, a song that needed no introduction and which it didn’t get. The crowd cheered happily when the familiar music that accompanies King of Self was played and they sang along with Sajid to the lyrics.

Sajid plays the guitar in a way that makes it truly his —with a familiarity that makes it difficult to differentiate the musician from the instrument. Depicting masterful versatility, he continued playing despite breaking a nail and wowed everyone with the way he ended King of Self.

Needless to say, the audience demanded an encore which Sajid and Zeeshan were only too happy to give. On Zeeshan’s insistence, they performed Freestyle Dive again. This also proved that Sajid cannot stop himself from doing a little jig to Zeeshan’s music every time this song is performed.

The downside of the pre-launch gig was the sound, which was really bad. Event managers need to know —musicians already do— how important the sound of any gig is. Essentially, people do come to ‘listen’ to songs that are being performed. Sajid and Zeeshan ended up performing in a way that didn’t make the sound-issue that dominant. Had it been anyone else, the people attending would not have stuck around as long as they did —till the gig ended.

It’s difficult to conclude a performance that remains fresh in one’s mind weeks after it happened. As a duo, they put most new live-acts to shame. Where most of the songs were perfectly tailored to the unique sound that is Sajid and Zeeshan, there were some songs on which a live, five-person band would have worked well. As a band, it was heartening to see that Sajid and Zeeshan had a good level of coordination between them.

Concerning the album, Zeeshan was involved in arrangement and production with Sajid in the lyrics and composition. At the press conference, a couple of days later (which incidentally was also the night of the TMA), Sajid commented that, “One light year at snail speed is about having a destination and making the journey to it… its about the journey itself that makes life worth-while.”

The album overall is concerned with “people, real issues, self-development, questioning on the inside”. Elaborating on the content, he mentioned that it was about “perception about love, pain, giving into people.” and that, “Some of the tracks reflect past-relationships but they have been written in a way to make them more relatable to everyone”.

When talking about how they were able to produce, compose and create music in a place like Peshawar which is rampant with restrictions, Sajid compared that to trying to choke a person: the more you choke a person, the more he/she will struggle and make a stronger effort for air/to breathe.

Since most of the songs were written in the nineties, some were concerned whether they were still relevant to the present era. In response Sajid said, “human nature does not change”

Omar Sheikh, who was representing EMI mentioned that “It was in August 12th, 1994 when EMI had closed down because of the piracy rampant everywhere. It wasn't financially viable for EMI to continue its operations in Pakistan… this is a good time to launch an album, especially after the anti-piracy crackdown in May 2005… we are coming back with a product that is considered to be ground-breaking”. On coming back with an album that was in English, he commented that “There is an element of risk in any venture, we are coming back after 12 years and this was the perfect album to come back with.”

He went to elaborate on the extensive measures EMI has taken to ensure that piracy of their products does not take place. When pressed for comments on the anti-piracy issue and EMI’s efforts on preventing piracy, Zeeshan replied, “I am going to miss downloading free music”

For many within and outside the music industry, the launch of this album has been eagerly awaited. Unfortunately the actual ‘launch’ of the album itself is constantly being delayed.

One assumes that part of the reason could be attributed to the heavy rains that Karachi was recently subjected to. At the time of writing this article, it was not available in the market. A new date has been set and hopefully the album will be delivered to shop-keepers by then. Till it does however, one has to make-do with the two-minute songs in the promotional CD that was handed out during the press-conference.

As a concluding note: during the press conference, on how he writes his songs, Sajid commented that “It’s the music that dictates how the song is going to be. I start by writing a small piece of music and if the music moves me enough, the words just come”.

Note:
— this is the un-edited version
— photos by Fayyaz Ahmed.
— written under the pseudo/pen-name Band Baji

First Published:
World Music Magazine
Sept/Oct 2006