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Riz Ahmed Releases Moving/Disturbing Short Film

By on March 6, 2020

We don’t usually put stuff up released on major labels or anything like that…but this is a different day, Riz Ahmed is a different being.

I am Pakistani but have never lived there.
I’ve lived in Hong Kong my entire life and only know what life is like as a minority – one that is brown and thus out of all the walks of life that inhabit Hong Kong, we are at the bottom of the barrel. The group that gets demonized as lowlifes, scammers, thieves, the ones that people tend to fear more than anything else. We couldn’t possibly be of any worth or value to our society.

So an artist like Riz Ahmed in all his alter-egos (Swet Shop Boys, Riz MC, actor, etc) seems to always speak to me – the way that Asian Dub Foundation did when I first heard about them. Here is a person who took who he is – a minority – that gets looked down at, and created powerful art that allowed his voice to be heard, that allowed his thoughts to be expressed, through strong anthemic and epic music, with immensely powerful poetic lyrical content.

Today Riz Ahmed released his debut full length and it’s all we’ve been listening to all day picking apart all the lyrics that speak to us. There are too many. Can’t wait until someone kind on this planet types up all the lyrics so us South Asian minorities all over the world have something to hold on to that we can call our own.

Along with the amazing music…he also released this 12-minute disturbing short film depicting life for us South Asians post 9-11 (actually, even pre-9 11).

Go support music that moves. Fuck all your stupid fucking girlfriend/boyfriend bullshit. There are families being torn apart in India being burned alive for being who they are and what religion they adhere to. There are families and people leaving Northern Africa trying to get to Europe only to be shot by coast guards left to perish in the ocean. There are families who are being deported in USA even if they’ve lived in the country for decades. Why are people risking life and limb? To give their families, their children a better life – any opportunity and possibility for their children to grow up in safety. Why can’t people understand this?

Go watch the film below…go listen to the music…go inform yourself.

UniteAsia.org is an underground Asian music news website created for the sole purpose of supporting our own world. We support all bands and genres HOWEVER we do not support nor have any sympathy for homophobic, racist, sexist rhetoric in lyrical content or band material. UNITE ASIA!
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