808s & Sufiyana: Ahmer’s hip hop tapestry from the Kashmir Valley
Ahmer in the video for “Kun”.
Srinagar-based rapper Ahmer spoke to The Chakkar about how a deeper examination of his own community, culture, and history helped jolt him out of his comfort zone, and inspire his ambitious sophomore LP, Azli.
“Nishaan”—traces—begins with a burial. Sounds of shovels dig into a grave. Blades are thrust into the Kashmiri earth. A menacing synth smothers the soundscape within its fog. And the deep, bass voice of Ahmer rises like a spirit over this burial ground, spoken words that will soon evolve into rhythmic quick raps, just as the shovel evolves into a thumping hip hop beat.
Let Ahmer be your tour guide into the Valley. Let him take you beyond the images of conflict on the news, dive deeper into the mental pain and psychological trauma of a life lived under occupancy. Let him create a blend of hip hop and poetry over his ancestral lineage of Kashmiri folk music, weaving a complex musical tapestry.
Earlier this year, Ahmer Javed—the prolific rapper and producer from Srinagar—released Azli (Azadi Records), his sophomore album, an ambitious project that progressed as well as subverted all expectations that the young artist had set for himself with his 2019 debut, Little Kid, Big Dreams. If LKBD was Ahmer’s introduction to himself, his family, and the situation in Kashmir, Azli takes an even deeper personal turn. Boosted by production patched with Kashmiri folk music, inspired by local poets and artists, and haunted by the anxiety of life in the Valley, Ahmer takes a mature spin with this LP, speaking not just about Kashmir, but from the very perspective of Kashmir.
Azli—translated as “Endless”—is a heavy record, recorded mostly in Urdu and Kashmiri, taking the listener deep into Ahmer’s troubled psyche, through doubts and paranoia, love and loss, the politics of selfhood under the politics of state. In “Nishaan”, the echoes of shovels are replaced by a descent deeper underground, of screams going unheard. A lot has happened since 2019—from the abrogation of Article 370 of the constitution, to the COVID Lockdown, to economical strife, to continued militancy—and Ahmer, once the little kids with big dreams, doesn’t hold back as an exhausted witness and victim to the world around him, when he raps, “Barah saal ki umar se mera dum ghute.” I’ve been choking since I was 12 years old. The track ends with the lonely strings of a haunting santoor, a continuation of the album’s earlier themes of loss and inner-solitude.
“The idea was to talk about mental health and PTSD that surrounded those in the valley. I wanted to touch about issues from the inner circle, rather than focusing on the outlines—the bigger issues that get talked about all the time. I just wanted to get into the nitty-gritty, the inner conflict that we’re surrounded with.”
Loss is a thesis from Azli’s first full track, “Gumrah” (astray), one of the standouts on the album, where Ahmer lays down his mission statement with his first words on the project.
Dushman ye hai gussa mera
Loote jaise ghuspaithiya
Gair hai mere apne yahan
Gehre galtiyon ke nishaan
All this anger is my nemesis
Robs me like an intruder
Even my own eyes are my foes
The scars of guilt are deep
Over a low-fi, tense beat, Ahmer’s words are brooding with paranoia. There is obvious inspiration from the Migos-style triplet flow, ad-lib, and echoes, but Ahmer’s adaptation of these traditionally foreign hip hop tropes in a new perspective gives the music an exciting, sharp edge. He changes the flow so that the words now seem to encircle and wrap around the listener’s head, like a warrior marking his territory before a strike.
Azli oscillates between the external and internal, as Ahmer paints vivid portraits of life for his community, while also descending further into his own personal tribulations. One of the most powerful instances is the interlude track “Janaza” (funeral), where Ahmer explores how the funerals denied to those fallen (or ‘disappeared’) in clashes against the state effect the loved ones that remain behind, left without an opportunity for closure. His voice is commanding here, terse and tense, stretched to near breaking-point, yet fighting to have the emotional stability to deliver the words he desperately needs to speak. It’s trauma in the disguise of stability, and the veneer breaks off all too often. He raps:
Phasa halaq mein hun
Main jaise rooh, ye kare mera photoshoot
mere muh pe moot ke meri laash se ho rahi guftagoo
thaila kitaabo ka uss pe khon mera school aaj kafi door
Feels like I’m stuck in throat,
Like a soul trying to get out while they take my pictures,
They piss on my face and are trying to have a conversation with my dead body,
Fresh blood on my school bag, my school is too far today,
To get a better sense of community, Ahmer also employs the assistance of a number of fellow artists from the Valley, including the poet Madhosh Balhami in a couple of skits. Balhami’s spoken-word verses further cement in the theme of isolation, both for the community as well as the individual. The album also features Kashmiri singers and rappers including Faheem Abdullah, Hyder Dar, Qafilah, Junaid Ahmed, AKillar. MC Kash, one of the pioneers of hip hop in the Valley, appears on “Kun”.
Meanwhile, the bodies keep piling up. Funerals, burials, shovels, death. By “Rov”, the matter has now reached fever pitch. Ahmer’s voice cracks and the beat switches. Another funeral without the body. “Hai ye inka guman, ye jannat ka bagh nahi yet registan,”. This isn’t a garden of paradise, it’s an arid desert. The track ends with a breaking point and uncomfortable, existential questions: Who is innocent? Who is guilty?
That break morphs into “Kalkharab” (insane), where Ahmer and co-star Tufail spit quickfire raps over a mean base-line and booming gunshots. It’s another one of the album’s standouts, a track to tap your feet to—or one to usher in a revolution.
Even a raging fire, however, will extinguish, and Ahmer’s rage trickles away into slow-burning embers on “Shuhul Naar”, the album’s longest track. Featuring an amalgamation of ghazals, santoor, harmonium, and rap, this is a slow, painful ballad, and a reflection of the long-term impact of trauma and insurgency. Junaid Ahmed’s vocals here crescendo with a haunting repetition. “Na ridum me naav, na rudum zameer” They erased my name / They erased my conscience.
The emotional roller-coaster leaves the listener with a sense of disenchantment, of being left away, of dreams unfulfilled.
In an in-depth conversation, Ahmer spoke to The Chakkar about a deeper examination of his own community, culture, and history, which helped jolt him out of his comfort zone and inspire his sophomore LP. Here are some edited excerpts from the interview.
The Chakkar: The songs on Azli are thematically very connected. It feels like a concept album. In your approach to making music, do you compose the songs first, and then find a theme? Or do you think of the theme first, and then compose the songs to fit the larger narrative?
Ahmer: I guess I’ll have to go back to the first album I dropped, Little Kid Big Dreams, which was a collaboration with Sez on the Beat, a producer, beat-maker, mix-master, and engineer. Ever since that project, I had already thought the continuation of my journey as an album artist. For me, albums and singles are completely separate. Albums define me completely as an artist. I really admire rappers and musicians who make big albums and are able to tell a story through it.
Azli was the kind of album that gave me a lot of room, lot of space. I was back in the Valley when COVID happened, after being in Delhi prior to that. I was just taking my time and roaming around, and I ended up at this place called Zero Bridge bund, which is nearby to my home. It was here that I met a few musicians, journalists, musicians, artists, poets, who like to gather around over cups of tea. I met a lot of people over there who inspired me.
I had to take the next step in my journey as an artist, and I didn’t want it to be like a ‘normal’ hip hop album. I just wanted to explore more as a musician, I wanted to sit down with musicians, and see for their process for myself. I wanted to take things in my own hands, rather than letting someone else do most of the work. I wanted to experience what it is to make an album from the scratch. And to do so from the place I come from.
I believe that there are tracks in the album that define what the shape of the album is going to be, and what direction I will be taking. One of the tracks was “Nishaan”, which was one of the first that I started penning down. Back then, the idea was to talk about mental health and PTSD that surrounded those in the valley. I wanted to touch about issues from the inner circle, rather than focusing on the outlines—the bigger issues that get talked about all the time. I just wanted to get into the nitty-gritty, the inner conflict that we’re surrounded with. I wanted to touch upon things that people don’t talk about. So, “Nishaan” gave lots of ideas to me as to how to expand the story, and how to connect it with every other track that I ended up making.
“Folk music had to be a part of it. Without it, I don’t think I would’ve done justice to the album. Whether that was getting someone to play rabab (one of the popular instruments in the Valley), or the sound of santoor in “Nishaan”, or the folk singing in “Shuhul Naar”.”
It took some time, but I also wanted to keep it all within Kashmir, including the collaborations that you see on the album. I’ve produced some of the songs myself. The artwork was done by a Shubham Kaul—he showed his own perspective and struggle through it. I wanted to make it an album for the Valley. Nothing outside of it.
The Chakkar: This album came out right after the big COVID waves. The Valley is, unfortunately, so used to shutdowns and cutdowns of all kinds. How did the pandemic challenge your music-making process?
Ahmer: There was anxiety. There was stress. I would have performed otherwise. I would have gone out. It would’ve been completely different, now that I look back at it. I don’t think I would’ve been able to finish some of the tracks on the album the way I did. I was able to meet these guys who are a part of the album, whom I sat down with, and tried to understand their perspectives and point of views. Even the people I met in the streets and had conversations with… I feel like it was meant to be. I don’t regret that. Even though I couldn’t do gigs and couldn’t go out... That’s how we all were. We were all in the same position.
As far as the Valley was concerned, it was different from other shutdowns because financially we were broken. Anyways, we had abrogation, and then we had to go through this. It was very difficult for a lot of people to survive and try to earn.
So, for me, as an artist… I was very confused. I had no clue what to do with this time. A few weeks went by, doing nothing. I couldn’t even pen down something. I felt like this was a huge pause on everything. I had plans to drop singles, but I didn’t do that. Instead, I took my time.
When I met these guys on the bund, and had a cup of tea with them—like Qafilah who’s on the album—it kind of also paved way for us building a community over here in the valley. There was a phase back in 2010 when hip hop was ‘founded’ over here by MC Kash, who is the pioneer of hip hop in the Valley. Back then, artists were really scared of reaching out to each other. There was ego also, and other factors. We couldn’t get a sense of community, of a group of musicians working together. For me, this was the right opportunity to reach out to as many individuals, singers, musicians, artists as possible, and try to understand where they’re coming from, what they’re trying to do with their music, to learn things from them and try to execute something. Most of this album was written on the bund only. I used to go and sit there, and just pen down things.
I wanted to give people a proper Kashmiri album that a lot of talent in it. But, at the same time, I wanted to tell a story through the album, I wanted it to be conceptual. I wanted each and every track to somehow connect with each other.
The Chakkar: Speaking of a ‘proper Kashmiri album’: The production on Azli is really inspired by the long history of folk music in Kashmiri folk music. Could you share how his production came together? Was there any particular sub-genre of folk music that you were inspired by?
Ahmer: In our camp there’s this producer called Prophecy. He came up with this idea of sampling. Hip hop is huge in terms of sampling, with the likes of Kanye West and other guys who pick up old jazz songs, chop them up, and make samples.
That was sort of a revelation, and it was something that no one here had done till date. Prophecy just gave an idea of what we can do. How big of a thing we can achieve from it. One of the songs that he has produced on the album is “Kun”, where he chopped and sampled a legendary folk singer named Abdul Rashid Hafiz. It’s from one of Hafiz’s jam sessions that goes on for twenty minutes, where they are playing one single melody and adding more instruments to it, trying to make it grander. Prophecy picked up a sample from here and tried to make a beat out of it, which I really loved.
I didn’t want to stick to just hip hop music. I wanted to drift away from the ‘trap’ sound. Even the tracks that are inspired by modern hip hop, I just wanted them to be very different and unorthodox. My feedback the post-production was also to stay away from what we get to hear these days, to try and be as different as possible. I didn’t want to be stuck in that loop, of only creating trap music, and all the high-hats that you hear on every track.
“I wish people understood what a musician goes through, when we try to pen down such thoughts. We are very fragile. These lines and these rhymes, and whatever I write about—whether directly or indirectly, poetically or not—come from the heart.”
Folk music had to be a part of it. Without it, I don’t think I would’ve done justice to the album. Whether that was getting someone to play rabab (one of the popular instruments in the Valley), or the sound of santoor in “Nishaan”, or the folk singing in “Shuhul Naar”. We wanted to pay tribute to folk musicians.
Exploring all of this took a lot of time for a musician like me, because this wasn’t my comfort zone. But I wanted to do something I wasn’t comfortable with. I wanted to try and make this an album that defined where I was in my head, and what I was going through mentally, as well as what the Valley was going through. I wanted to make it very grand compared to what my last few projects were like.
As far as the Kashmiri language was concerned, I wanted to take a deep dive in it, to just be better at it this time around, to be more authentic with the words that I was using, or whatever I was trying to say in Kashmiri. I wanted it to be very impactful, because when I did the first album in Kashmiri, it was a huge task for me: I had also started writing in Kashmiri for the first time then. From there to this, there’s been lot of learning, and a lot of things have happened that made me this way.
The Chakkar: You’ve mentioned the mental health aspect a lot. This is quite a dark album, where you often directly confronting your anxieties and your breakdowns. Was the experience of expressing yourself in this way cathartic for you? Did you find any form of self-healing while you were writing Azli?
Ahmer: I wish people understood what a musician goes through, when we try to pen down such thoughts. It takes a huge toll on the musician, because we observe things, we take a very deep dive into trying to understand things. We are very fragile. These lines and these rhymes, and whatever I write about—whether directly or indirectly, poetically or not—come from the heart.
Even if we aren’t correct in some sense, at the end of the day, it’s just how we feel. You may not exactly go through what a lot of people go through, who have seen way more than you. But you at least try to acknowledge the journeys through your art, through your music. You’re at least trying to talk about it.
Ahmer. Photo: Samarth Shirke
For a musician to come from a place like this, talking about such things is something that not a lot of people over here are going to step into, straight up. They’re not going to risk their daily lives. It takes extra effort to talk about such grave issues.
The Chakkar: What will be the next step for you—musically, thematically? While you were working on Azli, were there other grand ideas up your sleeve that you are saving for the future?
Ahmer: Azli is something that I don’t think I’ll be able to recreate, even if I had to. I feel the next step is being what I am—a musician—and try to explore more. I’m not just going to be stuck in one thing. I’m going to always try to be diverse with my music.
I am able to take the responsibility of sharing what my people go through as a community. Even if I don’t deserve it; I don't think I can speak for everyone. But at least I’m taking the responsibility through my art, through this medium that I have.
As far as my musical journey is concerned, I feel I have a lot of explore, and I have a lot to work on. There’s this phase where I’m telling a story from start to finish. But at the end of the day, I also believe in hope. That was also one of the goals: to let people know that music can work, and it can actually help us and provide for us.
If I was thirteen years old right now, in my school, writing my first rap, I would’ve have never believed that I went everywhere and performed, even though I come from a region that doesn’t have a lot of opportunities. But I still made it. So, I just want to give more hope to youngsters and musicians over here who want to express themselves. And I want to achieve that by working with a lot of people, trying to get more gigs, trying to make myself better, learn every day. And not stop doing what I’m doing.
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Karan Madhok is a writer, journalist, and editor of The Chakkar. His debut novel A Beautiful Decay (Aleph Book Company) was published in October 2022. His creative work has appeared in Epiphany, Gargoyle, The Literary Review, The Bombay Review, The Lantern Review, and the anthology A Case of Indian Marvels. He is the founder of the Indian basketball blog Hoopistani and has contributed to NBA India, SLAM Magazine, Fifty Two, FirstPost, and more. You can find him on Twitter: @karanmadhok1 and Instagram: @karanmadhok.
