Don’t know if you caught this today. There’s an Asian boyband on the loose. And they like hot pink, motherfunker! The BBC brought them to my attention in this piece which quotes their manager, EMI A&R man Aadil Rasheed, as saying “Black music has had 40 years to evolve, Asian music feels like it’s had about 15 minutes”. Apart from being a fragrant diss to all those hard-working Brit-Asian artists who, unlike his previous successes Jay Sean and Raghav, didn’t appear on TOTP, I’m assumuing he’s also referring to the ‘black music’ that has been in the UK for over 60 years. Still – he’s an A&R man, dude! What do I know about immigration and the effects of Afro-Caribbean culture upon the British nation?
Still, even to let one discrepancy go, I cannot allow Rasheed to walk away unscathed from his remark that:
“Asians are long established in Britain – let’s face it, everyone loves curry – but there is a perception that Asians are just not cool”
Everyone loves curry. EVERYONE loves curry. EVERYONE. LOVES. CURRY. Is that what this comes down to? Is this still the premiere port called at when looking at the effects of British-Asian culture today? That’s, like, what a member of the BNP would say, innit? What about cornershops, motherfucker? No? Well how about Mosques? They’re well cool, too! Speaking of cool – who holds this perception that Asians aren’t cool? Have you researched this, empirically or otherwise; or is that just how you feel when you’re down on your knees at EMI?
Fucking hell. It aint half hot, mum! If you take a look at one of my earlier scribblings, the fab Nasha compilation that came out earlier this year, shows that that there’s already a proliferation of exotic, tumeric finger-stained, paki produce already out this year. I’ve nothing against the hot-pink sexed up look of the all-dancing and all-singing puppets Rasheed’s dug up – hell, it’s even co-written by Lee ‘used to be in Blue and battered a taxi driver’ Ryan, so you know it’s gotta hit!
The song itself isn’t bad – it’s pop music with ringing dhol bhangra drums and a female hindi-vocal sample. Woah! Break those boudaries, boys. Obviously, the only way Asians in the media get anywhere in the media is by accentuating just how Asian and proud of being Asian they are by using a primarily ‘black’ style of music to convey that message.
So, with this first signing to Rasheed’s label, Gorgeous Brown (“Gorgeous Brown has the potential and aim to become a kind of Asian ‘Motown’ but hope to take things one step at a time…”), I can only wish it all the bitterness I can possibly inspire. May all that sail in her cry tears of rusted nails into their shit-stinking, halal balti bowls of aural death as they enjoy a black cock of death up their communal rectums.
Cos, clearly, that’s all Aadil Rasheed believes we’re fucking capable of.