As a teenager, I remember secretly dubbing my parents the “DFT’s”, a clever acronym for the “Dirty Fun Thieves”. The reason they were given this name had mainly to do with the fact that until I was 17, my fascist parents did not allow me to listen to CD’s with a “parental advisory” sticker on them. They assured me that I was not missing out on anything special, and that everything I needed could be found in either edited or tamer musical genres. Although my fascination with the unknown and mysterious wildness in these forbidden CD’s left me frustrated and curious, I obeyed the rules they set me, and never listened to anything I was not allowed to listen to.

Now, several years later, as I walk out of a show featuring the band “Two Dirty Desis”, my mind wanders back to the magical moment when I first heard an “R-rated”, parentally proscribed CD. It was at my neighbor/friend Dima’s house, and he had just bought the CD “When Disaster Strikes” by Busta Rhymes (and the Flipmode squad). Dima had always intimidated me, for he always had disrespect for authority that I found appalling and difficult to understand. When he put on the CD, my first instinct was to either tell him to switch it off or to just leave and walk home. However, some invisible force kept me silently sitting in my seat, listening closely as the Dima let the entire CD play through. That was truly a changing point in my life, for after that moment, I’ve tried to listen to as much hip-hop and gangster rap as possible.

The unique and inimitable combination of irreverence, fury and genius lies at the heart of hip-hop. The beauty of this musical genre is that when an great rap/hip-hop artist performs, he communicates an original and insightful perspective onto certain issues, while at the same time transferring an attitude of fearlessness and apathy towards things which one would normally worry about. The rapper inspires the listener to “throw their hands in the air like they just don’t care”, angle their hats on their heads, and talk like a streetwise thug. Although my parents thought it best to keep this aspect of this culture out of my childhood, I, today, find hip-hop to be the most inspiring and beautiful form of art and artistic protest. Listening to rappers such as Nas, Tupac and Dead Prez educates me while motivating me to contribute more to further society.

As I mentioned before, I very recently attended a show featuring the band “Two Dirty Desis” in New York City. The uniqueness of the band was two fold:

a) The band consisted of simply two young desis, one on acoustic guitar and both on vocals. Yet the genre of music they played was a fusion of hip-hop, rock, and folk. This simple acoustic instrumentation is practically unheard of in any other band in any of these genres.

b) I had never heard any musician (especially in the genre of gangster-rap) communicate the experience of being an Indian/Pakistani teenager in America. The passion with which they sing, along with a contagious irreverence for those in power combine to shed a fresh new light on desi music.

As an Indian kid growing up in America, I had just as much fury, frustration and hatred as an African American growing up in America. I felt constantly out of place, and seemed to face countless injustices. However, I never once heard music in any culture which could relate to that feeling. That is, until now.

After getting their demo CD and listening to it over and over, I’ve decided that the most powerful song they perform is a song called “Squares”. This song ruthlessly addresses President Bush’s actions and policies, from the point of view of (obviously) “two dirty desis”. One line that has been stuck in my mind for days now goes, “…sure, money makes you louder, but real power lies in silence, violence leads to violence, let us be silent and sing our songs with our hearts...”

Both members of the group are very talented lyrically, providing a fully satisfying balance of insight and humor in their content and originality and edginess in their flow. After listening to their performance, I was left provoked, intrigued, and impressed. To top it all off, the band is relatively immature in their years (Sid Muralidhar and Zeeshan Mallik are both freshman at the New York University), which does nothing but excite me, for I have yet to discover such an original group with so much potential.

I can guarantee you that in the near future, you will be hearing much more from the “Two Dirty Desis,” for they have much to say, and they sure know how to say it.

“Two Dirty Desis” will be performing at the Sruti concert/banquet in New York City on Saturday, April 9.
For more information on the group, upcoming shows, and free mp3s visit the Dirty Desis site

Puru is a desi teen from NYC, NY.

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