Mekaal Hasan Band – Rivayat (2023)
Mekaal Hasan, a renowned music producer and guitarist, has created Rivayat, a compelling music series that highlights traditional and local talent from diverse regions of Pakistan. The series seeks to bring to light the rich cultural heritage of Pakistan’s working-class musicians, whose families have preserved the roots-based music tradition for generations.
The series features artists from various regions around Lahore, who bring their unique musical styles to the forefront through meticulous recordings and international collaborations. By doing so, the Rivayat music series aims to weave the threads of Pakistani musical tradition back into everyday life.
The series offers a refreshing and authentic glimpse into the cultural and musical diversity of Pakistan, making it a valuable contribution to the preservation of traditional music. The artists featured in Rivayat have an unparalleled understanding of their local traditions, and they bring that knowledge to bear on their music, resulting in a captivating and moving experience.
One of the significant strengths of the Rivayat music series is its ability to amplify the voices of forgotten artists who have been overlooked by the mainstream music industry. The series provides a platform for these talented musicians to showcase their skills to a global audience, ensuring that their legacy endures.
Each track in the Rivayat music series is accompanied by a professionally produced video on the Mekaal Hasan Band YouTube channel. These videos provide a compelling visual element that enhances the musical experience and offers a deeper insight into the cultural context of the music.
“I wanted to restore a voice to these musicians and let them tell their story in their own words. I decided that they should choose the songs and the arrangements,” explains Hasan, an unorthodox choice for recording folk and traditional music in Pakistan. “We wanted to make the creative process democratic, driven by the artists. All the artists who came in, we said, you give us the songs you want to perform, try to pick something that someone from your family wrote. We wanted to invest in the music and musicians, nothing else.”
The emergence of Rivayat occurred in the midst of the global COVID-19 shutdown. This unforeseen event brought about significant distress to performing musicians across the world, especially those who relied on it as their primary source of livelihood. This plight was particularly pronounced among working-class musicians in Pakistan, who lacked alternative professional opportunities and state support. For them, the situation was nothing short of a disaster.
The gravity of this situation was not lost on Mekaal, a musician renowned for his eclectic mix of traditional and contemporary music. Unlike his cosmopolitan counterparts in the rock and pop genres, Hasan had a long-standing association with traditional musicians as a teacher and fellow performer for several decades. Thus, when the general sense of panic and helplessness pervaded the music industry in 2020, he was compelled to act.
His response to this predicament was to embark on a mission to give back to the community. Mekaal’s altruistic initiative aimed to support the struggling traditional musicians in Pakistan who were grappling with the pandemic’s devastating impact. Through his efforts, he sought to provide a glimmer of hope and assistance to those who were bearing the brunt of the crisis.
“When the pandemic hit, the first thing I thought was, ‘What’s going to happen to these artists who only can live by performing live?’” Mekaal recalls. “They have a huge disadvantage. They don’t speak English. Many aren’t on social media or YouTube.”
Notwithstanding, the musicians under consideration persevered in their musical endeavors. Mekaal extended an invitation to collaborate with him in recording. Initially, travel was deemed infeasible, and therefore Mekaal resorted to engaging musicians from his vicinity, Lahore, to participate in the recording sessions.
The crux of these sessions was to capture the unadulterated and unembellished sound of each individual artist or group without any superimpositions. A select few tracks were dispatched by Mekaal to his musician acquaintances situated across the globe, spanning from the United States to Russia, with a request to contribute their own artistic embellishments. Nevertheless, the majority of Rivayat’s musical repertoire comprises the very sounds that animate a shrine festival, invigorate a wedding, or reverberate through a narrow street in Lahore.
“The performances you hear on Rivayat are all recorded in one take, harking back to an era of capturing music in the most natural way, without resorting to any ‘fixes’ via manipulation of pitch or rhythm. This was a conscious artistic decision, one the artists were excited about. It differs from the highly produced approach many take when they create some recorded version of this music,” Hasan explains. “At the same time, we made full use of the best audio tech, to make the performances feel as alive and fresh as they do in person.”
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Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.