Revivals of the Rap culture in Pakistani music Industry: the two Talhas

Karachi: In the 1960s, as rock music swelled up and rose in power around the world, clubs in what was then downtown Karachi swayed to the sounds performed by young Pakistanis inspired by the music. But that wave died down as soon as it started. Artists then started focusing on Qawali and Folk music where people like Nusrat Fateh Ali and Abida Parveen made their mark and are still and will always be called as the pioneers of Sufi-istic music of the country. There were not much variations of songs that we used to hear and soon we saw the decrying of the death of creativity in Pakistani music, another side of music aka pop culture was given birth with touchstones being Atif Aslam and Ali Zafar but when we used to talk about rap our minds would instantly go towards Eminem, Lil Wayne, Kanye West and other famous rappers in the world but there was nothing that we can call our own, until recently, when a group of boys began meeting up in one of its numerous tea shops and laid the seeds of what became the Urdu rap scene in Karachi. While Pakistani rap started with Fakhar-e-alam, once the comic Ahmad Ali Butt was the only rapper of note in the Indus Music days. Most of the recent acclaim however, has been garnered by the witty Waderai Ka Beta fame Ali Gul Pir. The well-produced Adil Omer from Islamabad (BC Kholo), along with Osama Cum Laude (I’m Zoning), both of whom rap primarily in English, have also been making waves.

Perhaps it was unavoidable. Most rock singers nowadays are quite status quo, more likely to be found at motivating demonstrators on the streets, despite being icons of youth and rebellion like in the 1960s. Rap music, on the other hand, has evolved from an American phenomenon to a global statement of a defiant, urban culture. It’s no surprise that rap has influenced these young men who congregate in these dhabas. They named the location LA in honour of Los Angeles, a West Coast metropolis in the United States that is known as one of rap’s epi-centres, as well as the abbreviation for the city: Lines Area. Several regulars at those hangouts later become rappers or producers, but none of them reached the acclaim received by two Talhas – Talha Anjum and Talhah Yunus, who went on to become the duo known as Young Stunners.

In one of their interviews Anjum recalls how he got into rap music which was so ‘foreign’ for us. He said that when the duo was in their ninth or maybe tenth standard way back in 2009 they were avid listeners of rap. Once when he was up and studying late at night he started to scribble some words in his notebooks, which later became the rhymes. But he never really cared about actually going to a studio or recording anything, and truth be spoken Anjum didn’t have the money to afford a studio session either. It was Yunus who introduced him to all the music producing software and equipment and convinced him to record whatever he was writing back then.

Collaborating together, these boys became famous when they dropped their most hit single which is loved by many ‘Burger-e-Karachi’ in which they point out the elite class and their behaviors. After that their single ‘Maila Majnu’ and ‘Laam se Chaurah’ were also bangers and liked by many.

We all know what happened from there, they took Rap music and turned it into a relatable and somewhat dark genre that has mesmerized billions including us. Before them we Pakistanis were lacking our very own representation in the ‘Rap’ world, but “The Young Stunners” came rising out of the block and took the world of Pakistani music by storm with their huge talent and some mind-blowing verses, immediately caught the attention of the whole nation. The underground rappers surely made us realise the true potential of talent in Pakistan. That was until the shocking news of their split broke the internet and they went their own separate ways.

But on 22nd of June 2017, they surprised their fans by reuniting with their old producer Umair Khan and referring as ‘The Trio is Back’. They named their album Rebirth and dropped one music video and two audios on that single day. And on the first day of Eid-ul-Adha, they dropped another song naming ‘Karachi Lingo’ which is about the language and slang words one uses in Karachi. And just like that the two Talhas and their producer Umair became the ultimate Rap revivals of the Pakistani music industry, taking the youth of Pakistan with a storm and putting a feather in their caps with every single one of their releases.

Qawali, Sufi-istic, dhabas, Burger-e-Karachi’, ‘Maila Majnu’, ‘Laam se Chaurah’, Rebirth, Karachi Lingo,