Song Exploder - Arooj Aftab - Mohabbat

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

One of the songs I keep coming back to is “Mohabbat” by Arooj Aftab. It’s really special to me. I listen to it all the time. I’ve been listening to it so often that I wanted to revisit Arooj's episode about it. In the time since the episode has come out, she has released a collaborative album with Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily called Love In Exile, which got two Grammy nominations. And she has a new album that’s about to come out on May 31st, called Night Reign. Here’s her episode: Arooj Aftab is a singer and composer based in Brooklyn. She grew up in Saudi Arabia, but her family is from Pakistan. And earlier this year, she made history by becoming the first Pakistani artist to win a Grammy. Her song, “Mohabbat" won the Best Global Music Performance Grammy, and she was nominated for Best New Artist. "Mohabbat" was first released on her 2021 album, Vulture Prince, but it’s been a part of Arooj’s life for a long time . In this episode, she tells the story of how the song was first born, and how it lived with her and evolved over the years before she finally recorded it.For more, visit songexploder.net/arooj-aftab.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. One of the songs I keep coming back to is Mahabhah by Arujafthab. It's really special to me. I listen to it all the time. I've been listening to it so often that I wanted to revisit her episode about it. In the time since the episodes come out, she released a collaborative album with Vijay Ayyre and Shazad Ismaili called Love in Exile, which got two Grammy nominations. and she has a new album that's about to come out on May 31 called Night Rain.

Here's her episode. Arrujaf Thab is a singer and composer based in Brooklyn. She grew up in Saudi Arabia, but her family is from Pakistan, and earlier this year, she made history by becoming the first Pakistani artist to win a Grammy. Her song, Mahabath, won the Best Global Music Performance Grammy, and she was nominated for Best New Artist. Mahbath was first released on her 2021 album, Vulture Prince, But it's been a part of Arrude's life for a long time.

In this episode, she tells a story of how the song was first born and how it lived with her and evolved over the years before she finally recorded it. My name is Arrude Aftap. Mohabbat Karehale is this poem written by this guy, Hafiz Hoshiarpuri. He was born in 1912 and he wrote this beautiful poem of which I've taken some lines and adapted them into my song,

Mhabbat. Many, many different singers from South Asia have rendered this poem to song over the course of time. This is legendary Pakistani singer

Mehdi Hassan. I would consider it sort of like a South Asian standard. There are some pieces that are literally handed down and treated exactly the same way as jazz standards

and so I would say Mahabith is one of them. The first time that I had ever really heard it, I think I was probably like seven or eight. My parents, who are like really huge music enthusiasts, you know, they would always have these sort of musical evenings, like they would invite their friends over, they would sometimes invite like local musicians and singers over. It's called a mephil.

And so I was sitting next to my father, and he had his little like notebook where he had like poetry written down or lyrics written down and he would sort of flip through it and then decide which song to sing for the evening or whatever. And I think that was the first time I interacted with it was him actually singing it and seeing it written in his journal. I think it was not only the first time I heard the song, but also I think like as a kid, the first time I was really processing how cool music is and how amazing singing is. And so my desire to make a really honest version of it has been there for a long time. In 2009 or 10, was in Bushwick at a very close

friend's house and she had this beautiful rooftop, summertime in New York, and two or three other friends were visiting from Karachi. And we just went up to the roof, you know, with a bottle of wine. And she had a ukulele. I was like, I can't really play anything on this. But, you know, it's like, yeah, are you going to sing something? So I just kind of like finagled it into sounding like, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, and then just playing one note over and over again. And I was like, yo, mohaba. So that was kind of it.

It just took that. And then I was like, okay, I'm flying, I'm flying, I'm flying, let's go, let's go, you know. I think that was the first time that a melody felt good enough in my head that I sang it. That was like exactly the step that I wanted to take and that I was kind of waiting for it to happen organically. And so, you know, a Bushwick rooftop and a ukulele and a bottle of wine and the door is open. I went on to write and record my first record bird underwater

and I thought about Mobbitt quite a bit but I felt that it was not anywhere near ready. But I had started to play it live. This recording is from 2015. The band was upright bass, saxophone, keyboard, and drums. My musical collaborator is kind of like a rotating family of people that I love and trust with my music. And so sometimes it would be bass drums and acoustic guitar. I was just loving hearing what all it could be or not be, you know.

I think we played it live for like probably five or six years. years. And my music collaborators changed a lot over that time as well. And so it kind of has been doing its thing for a while. That's kind of how much I cared about it, you know? Like I just cared about it. I just wasn't happy with it ever. And then it finally, finally, after millions of years, and many different arrangements and many different sonic iterations started to feel right. my harp player is Maeve Gilchrist we went to school together so I've been hearing her play for so long

we had played a duo a couple of times I love playing duo with her because she doesn't play like really sweet and angelic you know it's like not pretty like she can get really metal and I love that you know she can really like push it and break the norm of what you're expecting

a harp to sound like and so after playing it for so many years and then just playing it duo with Mave, like it kind of suddenly just became really clear to me. Whenever I hear like one repeating note, that's like really exciting to me. My ethos is very like minimalism. But I still miss the acoustic guitar element of it.

And so the guitar is by Gyan Riley. Gyan and Mave created separate parts that locked together and they're playing so beautifully. If you had a harp, You wouldn't really put an acoustic guitar with it because they occupy such a similar space sonically. But I was like, yeah, but that's what I want to do. Like, I wanted to feel like one part that two different people are playing. Like, it's a two-headed monster, and one arm is playing the guitar,

and the other arm is playing the harp, and it's the same part. And then Shazad just kind of followed. The synth is Shazad Ismaili. He played Mug's synth on it. I was like, Shazad, I want you to take like a crazy, really long, like, storytelling solo in the middle and like, don't worry about time. Just take that like epic solo. After playing it for myself for six years, to actually record it,

I really, really needed the music to be like super expansive and very expressive. There are so many little moments that just come out of notes. and surprise you. For example, Nadia's Fugelhorn, her name is Nadia Nur Duis. She comes in and I was just like, man, you're just like the, you're like the color, like you're like the sunrise.

Then I sent it out to Jamie Hadad, who lives in Cleveland, he's percussionist and drummer. He kind of invented the alternative drum set where like instead of a snare there's a jambay and like the sort of world drum kit. He's like a legend. But whenever I write to him, if I send you this tune, can you send me some stuff?

And he's always just like, yeah, yeah, I'm down, I'm down. And he sent over a bunch of stems. And then we kind of like edited the percussion a lot, taking a lot out and making it the way that it is now. With the jambay is going like, do-d-d-d-d-d-it's accentuating certain key moments. And I loved the rhythm. that Jamie is doing there on the zills, like the chuck, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check. I was like, I just love that, I want that all over the song,

but it's just like, no, no, no, let's kind of place it strategically. What I really, really wanted from the music of it was to kind of convey the emotion of the lyrics so that people who hear it do not have to rely on knowing the language. Mhavit is in Urdu. The words that are in my mohbat, let's just call it that. It's Mhbate Kamna honge, Tere mehfilm in H'm nothongue.

He means basically like, there's many people around you who admire you, but I won't be a part of it. You'll have plenty of lovers, plenty of admirers, followers, people who respect you, that kind of thing. But I won't be one of them. So that's just like so fantastic. Zamanabharke gram, yeah, it'll be,

so that's not going to be, so he's kind of, after being like, I'm not going to be in your hang anymore, peace, I'm out of here, he's actually really sad about it. You know, he's weighing the weight of the world against the weight of, like, losing this person. This is so romantic, you know.

and just so big, which I really liked. Agar you, ittifakun, Mill b'g'a'a'i'a'i'a. So that's an interesting thing to introduce kind of later. I would still be aching to be with you, even if I did get a chance to be with you. So, you know, he kind of starts off by kind of giving you the impression that, like, this is something that he's walking away from,

but then halfway through the song you're like oh you actually like didn't ever even have a chance dude this is like totally all in your head when I read that line I was like whoa okay I kind of think I've been there like you're so into someone and you know even if the opportunity to be with them is forming you kind of self-sabotage

because you think that they're like so bigger than you you know and that's something that is like such a subtle kind of thing to experience and it's so difficult to put that words. There's so much happening so simply in the lyrics that at this point I was like, okay, I'm just going to like go back to the opening lines and then kind of get out of here. I've always really loved this poetry for this reason, like, and I've always felt that there's like so much more happening here between these lines. It is an iconic, I'm an iconic, I'm

think in our history and culture for sure of music and poetry. I'm not comparable to any of the legends who sang this, but I'm glad to be part of the conversation because it is what I did with it is like a thing of its own. There was this music that I've always been wanting to make, which would really gracefully and respectfully and deeply combine all of my roots from different places. and all of the things that I love about music. And this music is personal to my experience of life. Being from Pakistan and then studying jazz and then living in New York,

Mohabith is kind of like the friend that stays with you for like all of the years really, you know. Coming up, you'll hear how all these ideas and elements came together in the final song. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists,

and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me.

So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Malina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live.

Thanks. And now here's Mohabbat by Arujaf Thab in its entirety. Or visit at SongExploder.net. You'll find links to stream or download Mahabbat. This episode was originally produced by me, Craig Ely, Casey Deal, Kathleen Smith, and Chloe Parker. The reissue was produced with additional help from Mary Dolan. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.f.f.

If you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my newsletter on my website, rishikesh.co. You can find me and SongExploder on Instagram, and you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Your Way. Thanks for listening.