The Latest: 32.3 | Music

Ziauddin Sardar witnesses the annihilation of the famous Qawwali ‘Mustt Mustt’; Shanon Shah retraces the highs and lows of his pop career; Hafeez Burhan Khan shows off his (rather extensive) knowledge of Led Zeppelin; Zia Chaudhry is trapped between his parents’ love of Urdu songs and his own fascination with Western cultural products; Shaizir Aly is enthralled to see his hero Bruce Springsteen glorified on the big screen; C Scott Jordan argues that K-Pop is little more than child abuse; Elma Berisha is enchanted with the Rainforest World Music Festival in Sarawak; a short story by Ari Haque; and hip hop in action by Wasi Daniju and Azeezat Johnson.

The Boss

Blinded By the Light is set in Luton against the backdrop of industrial decline, the National Front and the themes of racist rhetoric that Asians in Britain were all too familiar with by that time.

Yesterday

‘A world without the Beatles is a world that’s infinitely worse.’ One of the more memorable lines from 2019 feel-good movie Yesterday.

Qawwali

This world, the old Sufi mystics used to teach, is a mirage. There is a higher Reality that exists by its own essence.

Led Zeppelin and Me

In the early 1980s, like many kids, I watched Top of the Pops every Thursday evening at 7.30pm even though there was no discernible style that captured my imagination. I didn’t mind pop songs but no band really grabbed me.

Harmony in Sarawak

‘Are you in your right mind?’ reacted Hanna, my typical festival-goer best friend, in response to my invitation to join us for the Rainforest World Music Festival 2018. ‘That is not an event for kids, there’s hippies, and narcotics, and…it’s not safe’.