In this concluding part of their interview, Krewella spoke to Instep from Los Angeles about their musical influences, rising above creative differences and how they managed to pursue EDM, coming from a Pakistani-American household.
Jahan Yousaf and her sister Yasmine Yousaf, who presently form EDM duo Krewella, have been pursuing a musical dream that began in a high school of Chicago. With their debut album, Get Wet, there was no going back and the duo rose to the charts of Billboard Hot 100; earlier this year they went on to perform at the Billboard Hot 100 Festival.
In between all this, Krewella made their Coke Studio debut with ‘Runaway’, a collaborative track featuring Riaz Qadri and Ghulam Qadri that allowed them to re-connect with their Pakistani roots.
In this concluding part of the interview, Jahan Yousaf and Yasmine Yousaf discuss musical influences, stigmas attached to pursuing music, racism and rising above creative differences…
Instep: Growing up, what were some of your musical influences?
Jahan Yousaf (JY): We grew up on a ton of Bollywood music actually so there was always this South East Asian influence in our household. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Sonu Nigam played. But it was a good mix of music; a bit of Arabic music as well. Our father also loved disco and pop-music, so there was Abba and the new wave pop from the seventies and eighties. Our mother loved rock and roll so we also heard Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles.
Instep: Since you began your career in your early teens, how did your father respond as there still is stigma attached to pursuing music professionally?
Yasmin Yousaf (YY): At first he was very nervous. He wasn’t disappointed that we were taking a break from school but he was very scared that we would never succeed at it and then we’d lose momentum. In America, if you don’t go to college and don’t have a ‘real job’, health insurance is also an issue, so he was worried for many different reasons. But within the first couple of years – when we started touring and making headway online – it became obvious to him that we were progressing, and that made him so proud of us. He was very happy with our decision and he and our mother are our greatest fans.
Instep: You began your careers before racism was acknowledged as a global epidemic. Did you face any hindrance(s) due to your Pakistani origin?
YY: We came up in a niche (musical) genre because electronic music is very niche in its scope of popular music in the West. People weren’t so focused on our image and identity beyond the music we were making. To be fair, we didn’t really focus on it either until about three years when we really started incorporating our Pakistani roots into the music we made, the dialogue we were speaking in our visual art, the clothes we wore.
It might not have been as obvious about nine years ago when we first came into the music scene. I think we didn’t face as much discrimination and now that we’re established, I think it’s important to continue using the platform we’ve already built to bring Pakistan on the map.
Instep: How do you rise above creative decisions and find common ground when you both have different approaches?
JY: I think this is a constant evolving dialogue for Yasmine and I. Just the other day we were talking about how we can communicate better in the studio and how we read each other’s energies. Human beings are animals at the end of the day who pick up from one another. I think what we’ve realized is that the best way to communicate is with love and not to make assumptions about each other, telling oneself stories of what the other person ‘might’ think of your creative visions. So, the most important thing is to put the work in and talk about how we can collaborate in a more open way.
