Hyderabadi rappers Mudassir Ahmed and Syed Irshad are back with their 

new album ‘Resurrection 040’

Deepawali is just over. Now get ready for some verbal fireworks.

Haq ki awaz

Main hoon Hyderabadi aatishbazi

Kabhi na dekhi hogi alfazon ki golabari

Watan se teri nafarmani

Farzi teri rashtravadi

Zalim tera zulm, nahin mujhe hazam

Sar se utaroon tere saya

Main hoon aamile khaas

It’s Hyderabadi Rap, Urdu Hip-Hop. Desi rappers, Mudassir Ahmed and Syed Irshad, are now back with a bang. And this time with a new album — Resurrection 040. The 12-track album is gonna make you groove to the heavy beats and reggae influences.

The rap duo, who go by the stage names ‘Mo Boucher’ and ‘Irish Boi’ are set to light up the rock scene in the country. The songs are real fire — combining as they do sufi and hip-hop genres. Since they are returning after a long hiatus of six years, the album is appropriately named ‘Resurrection’ while 040 represents their home city, Hyderabad’s telephone code.

It was in 2007 that Mudassir and Irshad established ‘Thugs Unit’, their hip-hop group, in Hyderabad with fusion beats and multilingual lyrics switching from Urdu, English and Jamaican Patois. They produced many mixtapes and singles.

Two years later, they took to rapping in chaste Urdu and garnered a lot of attention among the youth. Talking rhythmically to the beat of rap music, they try to expose the ills of establishment. Fighting crime with rhyme, as they call it. There is also a generous doze of spirituality and self-reflection thrown in the lyrics. Hitherto confined to qawwalis, sufism later entered Bollywood in a diluted form. But now, the Hyderabad hip-hoppers have made it a part of the rap culture.

The new album, Resurrection 040, released on Friday on Apple Music, the global music distribution platform, is produced by the US based Grammy-nominated and multiplatinum producers, including Buck Wild and Anno Domini of the UK. Some of the songs go by catchy titles such as Rubaroo (face to face), Raahe Rast (straight path), Suroor-e-Ishq (exhilaration of love), Pardafash (unmasked), and Atishbazi (fireworks).

“Our songs become voice of the voiceless. We inspire people through music and make them to think and question,” say the rapper pair who make their own compositions ranging from dreams, romance and life on the whole. Their new album has 80 per cent Urdu lyrics and the rest has English and Jamaican flavour.

So get ready for some boom-bap beats.

J.S.Ifthekhar,

Hyderabad based journalist.

Article published in Telangana Today 

Dated November  20,2020

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The book is sure to warm the hearts of aficionados

Is there anything left to be written about them? This is the question that comes to mind when one thinks of William Shakespeare and Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib. Over the years numerous scholars have probed and delved into every aspect of their works in minute detail. To discover a new angle about them is perhaps next to impossible.

Yet there remains an unquenchable thirst among scholars to come up with a new perspective about these celebrated writers. Interestingly, Prof. Anwar Moazzam has done the impossible. He has undertaken the daunting task of unravelling the intellectual concerns of Ghalib, a subject hitherto not attempted by anyone.

And sure enough he has succeeded in presenting new shades of meaning and uncovering subtle nuances in the works of Ghalib, the giant of Urdu and Persian poetry. Prof. Moazzam’s newest book — Nightingale of an Uncreated Garden – Ghalib’s Intellectual Concerns, is sure to warm the hearts of Ghalib aficionados.

The reader enjoys a mesmerising journey which takes him through the life and works of the great poet. More importantly the reader gets a peak into the intricate web of the poet’s thoughts, particularly his mystical point of view.

Prof. Moazzam, who taught Islamic studies in Osmania University, Aligarh Muslim University and Hamdard University, also published a book in Urdu — Ghalib Ki Fikri Wabastagiyan. This 19th century bard continues to stimulate and delight generations of poetry lovers. Like Shakespeare, Ghalib’s verses have become part of everyday usage. Almost unwittingly one recites his couplets to drive home a point.

And for scholars Ghalib presents a challenge, rather a puzzle, since his verses are densely textured and loaded with a world of meanings. “The extensive commentary on Ghalib in South Asia has always focused on appreciation of various facet of his poetry to the total neglect of the thought content”, says Prof Moazzam and cites this oft quoted verse: Na tha kuch to Khuda tha, kuch na hota to Khuda hota Duboya mujh ko hone ne, na hota main to kya hota (When there was nothing, (only) God existed, had there been nothing God would have been; my being spoiled me, had I been non-existent, what would I have been) Ghalib was an iconoclast and refused to follow traditional views without critical examination.

His poetry often raised questions about the Islamic belief of life after death, predestination, reward and punishment. He asked questions about himself, his beloved, God, the universe, the existent and the non-existents, agnostics and rationalists, religious, traditional and anti traditional values. Treating Ghalib’s poetic narrative as poetic conversation would help reveal several layers of his poetics, says Prof. Moazzam. Concepts like vujud (existence), imkan (probabilities), zuhur (manifestation), ishraq (illuminism) are some of the dominant philosophical elements in his poetry. There are three ways to unravel the enigma that Ghalib is: his Urdu poetry, Persian poetry and his letters.

Quality wise his letters are as good as his poems. Prof. Moazzam does justice by going into all the three aspects of the maestro. Urdu poetry, according to Prof. Moazzam, is more sensuous than intellectual. Usually the aesthetic expression of feelings is paid more attention than the intellectual content.

Ghalib, however, differs in that his poetic aesthetics includes thought, intellect and deliberation. He was the first among the intellectual leaders to welcome the potential of the new academic, scientific and administrative measures introduced by the British colonial regime to take medieval India into the modern age.

“Rational and intellectual study was an integral part of Ghalib’s poetics”, points out Prof. Moazzam. Contrary to what one thinks, it is Ghalib’s Persian writings that reflect his innermost intellectual concerns. He doesn’t fall into any school of thought and yet he gives space for every point of view. The 290-page book helps one meet the real Ghalib.

J.S.Ifthekhar,

Hyderabad based journalist.

Article published in Telangana Today 

Dated November 05,2020

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