Pindi Boyz roar

In his thick American accent, Osama Karamat, or OCL, a well-established rapper, sounds genuinely thrilled as he talks about ‘Pindi Aye 2.0’. The single, which was dropped earlier this summer, is the sequel song to 2020’s roaring hit, ‘Pindi Aye’.

OCL has dropped a trilogy of EPs in the last few years including PaKing, Barbaadi and Munkashif as well as several other songs but his excitement, at the moment, is prompted by introducing Pindi Boyz.

Right off the bat, he wants to clear up the fact that ‘Pindi Aye 2.0’ is not only a song where artists from Rawalpindi get together for a collaboration but the first single from a hip-hop group.

Pindi Boyz features Has-him Nawaz, Zeeru, Hamzee, Shuja Shah, Usman Ghauri, OCL and Khawar Malik. This independent group is signed to indie label Stardek, which is spearheaded by MRKLE.

Are you thinking of N.W.A? Well, yes, because a rap group can be as influential as a solo artist and no, because, this is not a group without transparency or one person being pushed in the limelight ahead of others like N.W.A and money disputes.

Speaking about the formation of the super-group, OCL explains how it happened.

“In the first iteration of the song, ‘Pindi Aye’ from 2020, seven solo artists were collaborating but now we have officially brought the group together.”

The super-group is the result of everyone getting together, talking openly about any issue, one by one, until becoming a super-group was inevitable.

OCL is pretty frank about why certain changes to the group were made with one artist missing and we will get to it. But first, the formation.

Going back to the first song, ‘Pindi Aye’, OCL remembers how it started. The formation of Pindi Boyz initially found its roots in 2020 with the creation of ‘Pindi Aye’.

The backstory to the song begins with Khawar Malik who was approached by Shuja Shah and Zeeru, both of whom were neighbors.

The original idea or a “fetus of an idea”, reveals OCL, was in a bare bones form, and came from Shuja Shah. After it was reshaped into a newer musical landscape with Khawar Malik also doing the hook, he approached OCL, who was in Karachi at the time. OCL remembers that upon returning, he kept his word and the rest can be heard in the single, ‘Pindi Aye’ and its music video, which has been wat-ched and heard by millions of people (and wasn’t a bran-ded effort).

But that was 2020.

For ‘Pindi Aye 2.0’, OCL narrates that he picked up the phone and called Hashim Nawaz. “We’re all brothers but with Hashim, it’s a different vibe because of the time we’ve spent away from the music industry and how we connect on a spiritual level.”

OCL called and Hashim Nawaz, a ferocious rapper who can stand on his own two feet with or without a collaboration, answered.

OCL pitched the idea to him that instead of a song, they should form a collective, or to be precise, a group.

Hashim Nawaz agreed with OCL that the first song Pindi Boyz put out should be ‘Pindi Aye 2.0’.

“A team effort is always better than an individual effort,” remarks OCL.

“This genre, hip-hop [and rap], in Pakistan is in its fetal stage because our music-listening audience is not that mature yet. Young Stunners are killing it but at the end of the day, they’re also a three-person group and there is a fourth one as well.”

OCL is talking about their producer Jokhay as the third person and Umair as the fou-rth addition (who also works with them pretty much all the time).

“What I’m trying to say is that it’s a team effort, right? So, Hashim was with it. I called Zeeru and Shuja Shah next and I called Khawar Malik after that. All the boys got together in the studio because a three-year gap can create lack of communication and/or miscommunication. The idea was to clear the air and get everyone on the same page.”

Somewhere between the baby steps being taken to create a bonafide hip-hop collective, Hashim Nawaz and OCL got an opportunity to play at a small gig in Islamabad, featuring a line-up of only hip-hop artists.

Hamzee was also a part of the show. They saw him perform. That led to calling Hamzee and eventually all six of them sat down in the studio to get everything out and see if they were all in a space where they could form a group. Each person embraced the idea of team effort.

The conversation was the birth of Pindi Boyz where it was decided that while every artist in the group would, could, and should do solo projects, Pindi Boyz would be priority.

“We united, and that was the process of getting the group together. Ghauri is the seventh member.

He is the producer. I got in touch with him before Hamzee and he came onboard before Hamzee. It was like a no-brainer that once the group was formed, ‘Pindi Aye 2.0’ would be our first track as a group. Hashim and I were sitting and Ghauri sent some beats. One was really refreshing. The thing is that any sequel to a song or a movie needs to be different but also have elements of the original, so we shared it with everyone.”

A song was born.

The only person missing in Pindi Boyz is Fadi (who has left music for personal reasons).

Pindi Boyz got everyone back and did their best to not make one person shine more than the other. “It was his own choice and I wish Fadi the best in whatever he does. But we have the same lineup minus him. In other words, nobody was left behind irrespective of trolls and made up beefs or real ones.”

If Fadi is not in the song or group, it is, according to OCL, because of a personal decision.

The group is not so much a homage to N.W.A as it is to the city of Rawalpindi, a reflection of which can be heard in the first song that set things in motion.

“Lifting the Rawalpindi scene was more important. Right now, Karachi is killing it. And there was a time many years ago when the twin cities (Rawalpindi/Islamabad) were dropping a lot of hip-hop and we were killing it up here but the tide has turned so it is all South now. You could say this is the revival of the North hip-hop scene, and we are fortunate enough to be sitting with a massive hit, which is the first iteration (‘Pindi Aye’). It gave us confidence to do ‘2.0’ and to get it right for us and for the fans.

“Also, I feel like we wan-ted to pay homage to Rawal-pindi with ‘Pindi Aye’ in

a positive light without disrespecting other places or cities.”

What is Sheikh Rashid doing in ‘Pindi Aye 2.0’?

OCL admits that even though some people think that he has been edited into the music video of ‘Pindi Aye 2.0’, he is very much in the music video in flesh. There is BTS footage if anyone needs proof. His involvement was also an idea that had come to the group during ‘Pindi Aye’. But lack of access back then didn’t even allow the rappers to get to him.

For ‘Pindi Aye 2.0’, the job to get him to star in the music video fell on OCL’s shoulders, and they wanted to involve him because he is the original Pindi boy. Mission accomplished.

The references jump from comic books to turmoil in the country to why Sheikh Rashid is in the music video in the first place.

Art, as it has been said, is subjective, and perhaps this is why the new song from the group, a sequel to ‘Pindi Aye’ has made all sorts of records from TikTok to taking rap to another level.

Is the audience not rap-friendly, or just more selective due to choice depends on the perception of each and every listener. But what is clear is that Pindi Boyz will not disappear after one song.

Irrespective of their solo craft, the group is here… to stay. Giving them a wide berth, ‘Pindi Aye 2.0’ is still a good effort because it is not about infighting but lifting an entire scene from what may look like hibernation.

Will they go beyond ‘Pindi Aye’ and ‘Pindi Aye 2.0’ and find similar success? That will be the real litmus test for Pindi Boyz.

OCL has dropped a trilogy of EPs in the last few years including PaKing, Barbaadi and Munkashif as well as several other songs but his excitement, at the moment, is prompted by introducing Pindi Boyz. Right off the bat, he wants to clear up the fact that ‘Pindi Aye 2.0’ is not only a song where artists from Rawalpindi get together for a collaboration but the first single from a hip-hop group. Pindi Boyz

features Hashim Nawaz, Zeeru, Hamzee, Shuja Shah, Usman Ghauri, OCL and Khawar Malik.

This independent group is signed to indie label Stardek, which is spearheaded by MRKLE.