In this concluding part of the interview, Haniya Aslam talks about the impact Zeb and Haniya had on a generation, being a cross-cultural musician and what it’s like to create background score for a film.
For Haniya Aslam, a computer science undergrad, where tech-meets-music is where she is right at home. She’s known for a lot of things – singer-songwriter, audio engineer, etc. One of those things is creating a background score.
Sipping on a cup of tea, Haniya elaborates that a background score – in this case we’re talking about Mehreen Jabbar’s Dobara Phir Se – is about being a part of the script. Speaking about her experience about DPS, she tells Instep, “It was so much fun,” before adding, “I’ve realized that the background score is the dialogue not spoken. A lot of the emotion that is being exchanged in any given scene, which is not written in dialogue, is communicated through the score. It is done in a way that the audience doesn’t realize they’re being told what’s happening. But they still feel it. They’re little devices you can use. It’s really exciting.”
A full-fledged musician - she recently featured in the fifth episode of Coke Studio 11, playing a Baglama (baa-lama), a Turkish folk instrument, as an addition instrumentalist. When told about an earlier interview with Zohaib Kazi and Ali Hamza, co-producers of season 11, who were mighty impressed with Haniya’s work ethic, skill and talent, she says: “These guys (co-producers Ali Hamza and Zohaib Kazi) have more confidence in me than I have in myself. They’re like ‘do this, do this’ and for some reason since I’ve come to Coke Studio, I’ve not been saying no. I’m very excited to be here. One example is: ‘Hamza said do you play banjo?’ I said no and he said ‘you do now’ and just handed me a banjo (laughs) and told me that there was a song in which they wanted me to play the banjo. I put on YouTube and for one whole day I practiced and practiced and then the next day sat on the rehearsal and played the banjo.”
She adds: “Skill level, I suppose, is there at the back of your head but you don’t push yourself as much as someone else might. And these guys do.”
Haniya’s claim to fame was the music duo she formed with her cousin, Zeb Bangash and went on to release their debut album, Chup in 2008.
In contemporary music, particularly a decade ago, it felt like an anomaly. Now it’s getting better, just a little bit better. As artists like Slowspin, Natasha Noorani, Natasha Humera Ejaz, Zahra Paracha, Sameen Qasim, Meesha Shafi, Zoe Viccaji, Rachel Viccaji have emerged in addition to Hadiqa Kiyani.
In the BTS footage it was Rachel who noted that she was a fan of Haniya. And so, when Zeb and Haniya came up, through their very presence followed by their beautiful debut album, it felt good.
“I guess so,” she says. “I had no awareness of this but coming back and seeing all these young women makes me so happy. I feel like my heart will explode every time. And they’re strong; I met one of them for the first time and we were talking and I spout off about fame these days because I feel it’s useless and empty and pointless. I was telling her how I hate being in the media, blah, blah and she turned to me and said, ‘But you had to be. We were watching.’ And that’s one phrase, two, three other kids have said to me and since then, it has come back to me and it sends chills down my spine. But it’s true, whatever you do, you don’t realize but the kids, who you’re not thinking about when you’re doing something, are watching and constantly processing.”
As for the album, Haniya believes Zeb and Haniya really launched via Coke Studio. “When our album, Chup, was coming out, we were trying to figure out what one does once it’s released. And we were losing hope with people telling us ‘oh there need to be women behind you dancing onstage’. Zeb and I were at a loss and we met Rohail (Hyatt) and suddenly this thing, this platform happened, which was only about the music where nobody was telling us what to wear or how to smile into the camera. It was just about doing your thing; your song and it gave us an emotional boost. And once it came out, the numbers we got, technically our launch was through Coke Studio.”
To someone like Haniya, always trying to learn, song is one format of music. “Song is just one format of music,” she says. “You can make and release music in so many ways. You could be doing operas and symphonies or doing bandish and thumris or avant-garde soundscapes or scoring.”
Having formed the Haniya Aslam trio that turned into a quartet and played a show in Toronto that featured Waleed Abdulhamid from Sudan, Naghmeh Farahmand, an Iranian percussionist as well as Peter Lutek, Haniya remains grateful for the opportunity. Collaborating with other artists onstage and playing shows abroad as Zeb and Haniya prior to moving to Canada, Haniya continues to remain a cross cultural musician.
As Haniya confesses, it is the best part. “When Zeb and I travelled abroad - to France, New York, Norway – and met musicians there, that was the most exciting part - when they (the musicians) bring their own traditions to your song - and you realize that there are so many doors in any tradition and in any composition. You can open any one and head out in any direction and you don’t even know where you’ll end up. That’s the exciting part of creative collaboration, when you can’t predict the end result.”
