“There she goes again/ Racing through my brain/ And I just can’t contain/ This feeling that remains.” – ‘There She Goes by The La’s

t is close to mid-afternoon, and Atif Aslam, 40, is telling me a [childhood] story about how 25 children including him once sat in his father’s car. It wasn’t a jeep but an economy car, he explains. However, it was also the only car that was used for every occasion because at the time, his father was the only one with a car.

We burst into laughter as the singer, songwriter, composer, and actor recalls his humble roots. Born in Wazirabad and raised in Lahore before moving to Dubai, U.A.E, his songs tend to be a mix of Urdu and Punjabi.

Punjabi, he says, was the language spoken at home. “I picked up Urdu in school,” he recounts. These days, Atif Aslam is in the news for his participation in Velo Sound Station 2.0. after being a part of the debut season, in 2020.

The new season has undergone a drastic change with executive producer Bilal Maqsood amicably leaving, making room for Rohail Hyatt, with Coke Studio veterans Kamal Khan and Zeeshan Parwez roped in as co-directors.

During the first iteration of Velo Sound Station, Atif performed ‘Kadi Te Hans Bol’ as his one and only contribution to the series to enormous success. I ask him about his stage performance in the first season and how it was choreographed. As it turns out, those moves were not choreographed at all.

“It was just me.”

The new season of Velo 2.0. is different.

He explains how both songs he contributed to the series had pop elements with an edgy core.

“‘Mangan Aiyaan’, whi-ch I composed, was an edgy and slightly commercial solo pop song. ‘Jalna’ with Rozeo, had to, and did, offer something new. In fact, with every season of Velo Sound Station, Coke Studio, or any similar platform, my motive is that if you do one commercial song, the second one has to be in a different zone; it has to be experimental. ‘Jalna’ is in that zone.

I opted to do it because of this reason and I think it sounds interesting.”

Did he prepare himself to rap by listening to Kendrick Lamar on repeat? Nope.

“Honestly, I didn’t have to prepare myself. You have to nail the lyrics because the soul of the song is in the lyrics. If your enunciation and rhythm is okay, I think you can work out the rest.”

Atif is not a rapper but he can wing it as he did in ‘Jalna’. What, however, does he think about dancing, an element of performing arts, first made visible in season one and followed in a potent and larger scale in season two? Is he comfortable with dancing - whether it is choreographed or comes from natural ability?

“I was not choreographed in season one. In ‘Jalna’ it had to be choreographed because the video was shot in reverse. We had to remember the lyrics in reverse and on top of that, we had to rehearse the reverse moves. It was my first experience doing something like this.”

“May you stay forever young.” – ‘Forever Young’ by Bob Dylan

Atif Aslam, who will finish two decades in music this year, sang, danced and even played rapper in VSS 2.0 while working with musicians who are younger than him, lesser-known and a product of the social media age. But Atif is still as undaunted as he was when we last spoke at length when he was in California, close to the beginning of a new year.

Right now, he is talking to Instep from Dubai, and he isn’t worried about the status of each song. Those verdicts always depend on interpretation since all art is subjective. He also knows his fans are loyal and while he admits he has no formal eastern training, rapping on Velo Sound Station 2.0. or dancing or collaborating was to him, like anything else, a challenge that he cleared with top marks.

Participation in such shows and bouncing from different musical genres and formats is a habit and one that likely won’t change.

When Aslam talks about music that has had an impact on his musical consciousness, he thinks back and comes up with an eclectic list. “‘Bombay Theme’ by A. R. Rahman, Night Song (a collaborative album) by Ustaad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brook, Mekaal Hasan, Hootie & The Blowfish and John Mayer. In eastern music, Ustaad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.”

“It is absolutely true that you are pushed onto a pedestal but as long as you are self-aware that the ones who pushed you to that position can very effectively pull you down, you will be okay. Remembering that being on a pedestal is just air is important - air can become polluted, it can move in another direction that may or may not affect me. It will not blow in the direction I want one day and that’s alright.” – Atif Aslam

There is a dynamic musical aesthetic at play.

How does Atif see the nexus between creating music that has universal appeal, the growth of technology that has allowed budding artists to upload their music on a plethora of platforms and his own identity as a well-established artist?

“My war is with time,” he says. “I don’t get time but when we’re working on my music, it is great in execution and always has an element of fun.”

He has half a dozen songs that are being worked upon for music videos and many more in the works that he hopes to eventually release as one follows another.

However, if he doesn’t do more than this, it is also because of his responsibilities as a father and husband, a family man. He doesn’t have that much time to dwell because of how he prioritizes family first. “I have to make them (his children) study, or take them out. I can’t leave it on my staff. I want to be there for them. I don’t want my children to grow up and say ‘you were never around’ so I need to have that lasting bond with them. I barely get time as it is. However, when I do have time, it is often about driving and picking them from school and being an involved parent.”

“I give you everything I have, the good, the bad/Why do you put me on a pedestal/I’m so up high/I can’t see the ground below.” – Bethany Joy

In terms of songs, romance and universal emotions like love and longing is what Atif Aslam can and does sing about. He knows it well and admits he is not the person who sings about issues pertaining to social justice.

If love can transcend space and time, as projected by Chris Nolan’s Interstellar, Atif Aslam is the singer of that universal emotion. “People know me as a love songwriter so they do expect a certain kind of song - something dramatic, something filmi, and I broke away from it because how many times can you do this? There came a time that I was running from it. I still have that in me but it was during that time that I explored ‘Tajdar-e-Haram’ so when I did that, people said that my long-evity as an artist got extended by another decade. Similarly, there was ‘Raat’ or going back to originals and your own roots, which was ‘12 Bajay’ and getting away from soundtracks.

That chain of breaking the pattern is what we’ve tried to do in Velo Sound Station 2.0.

The halo that follows Atif Aslam may have lasted 20 years, making him one of Pakistan’s national heroes, truth be told.

In a country where search for identity is real, Aslam doesn’t just have legions of fans. He is seen as a national hero. But when you put a person on a pedestal, there is a point where you want to see them fall. It applies to anyone from poets to artists.

I say Atif Aslam because he can connect the past to the present and the present to the future. Think about the beginning: from the days of Jalpari to Velo 2.0. as well as his following in countries no other artist from Pakistan has ever performed in.

“That’s a really good question…”

But you are on a pedestal and either it has or will be tried and the reason can be as banal as simple human (albeit toxic) nature. Human beings are flawed.

“It is a beautiful question. It is absolutely true that you are pushed onto a pedestal but as long as you are self-aware that the ones who pushed you to that position can very effectively pull you down, you will be okay.

Remembering that being on a pedestal is just air is important - air can become polluted, it can move in another direction that may or may not affect me. It will not blow in the direction I want one day and that’s alright.

“To be honest, many have tried to do it. I don’t mean one person; I mean it’s like a Pandora’s box and I wouldn’t want to open it because those people don’t matter to me. From doing it politically to so many agencies to even at a creative level. But I have no interest in being on a pedestal in the sense that I have lived it completely. I’m not afraid of not being on it because I know what it is like.

“I feel God has blessed me. There are so many people who sing better than me but I feel blessed. Even now things like #bringAtifAslamback are trending and just recently, for a Pakistani-Canadian film, I have done a song called ‘Bura Haal’.

So, it is like a trio of
releases, anyone looking for Bollywood can listen to ‘Bura Haal’ and anyone looking for pop can listen to ‘Mangan Aiyaan’ or looking for more experimental can listen to ‘Jalna’ (with Rozeo) so there is something for everyone. Being on a ped-estal comes with responsibilities and it is easy to fall because we are all infallible.”

As this conversation with Atif Aslam winds down, I ask what is the one issue or question he doesn’t like to talk about. Without thinking and with a clear mind, Aslam says: “Religion. It’s very personal.”