“The creative process is a dark and beautiful thing,” Natasha Noorani, 26, says shyly when asked how she struggles with it. She works as a music manager and, along with her friend Zahra Paracha, is co-founder of the annual Lahore Music Meet (LMM).

Noorani, inspired by her brother, first picked up the guitar when she was 13-years-old. She fell in love with making music and, soon after, ended up opening for Noori at a concert in her high school in Lahore. She remembers it as a ‘cringefest.’ “Everybody was laughing at how red I had become. I went into a classroom and cried [afterwards].”

Undeterred by this experience, Noorani continued to participate in ‘battles of the bands’ and school competitions. While in university, the idea for LMM came to her when she was “not paying attention in a classroom” in November 2014. In April of next year, Paracha and Noorani hosted LMM, the first of four music festivals. Today, Noorani works as a music manager in Karachi, performs with Paracha in Biryani Brothers and is working on her first album. She has so far released one solo single titled Certainly.

Noorani’s music-making process begins with writing the lyrics. “[It’s] a lot of penning down thoughts that make you so vulnerable should someone really latch on to what you’re saying,” she says. “It’s like putting myself out there in a glass box for everyone to stare at.”

Despite overwhelming challenges, young musicians continue to work on albums quite simply because they love the craft. They remain hopeful that as long as new and original music continues to be made, music in Pakistan will keep moving forward

For Abdullah Siddiqui, an electronic musician from Lahore, the creative process comes with his unique set of challenges. Currently studying for his A-levels, Siddiqui creates his music using nothing but a laptop, headphones and a microphone. Eight of the nine songs that he has released so far were made using an iPad.

Siddiqui recently performed two of his releases, Fiction and Warm & Redeemed, as part of the True Brew TV’s Singles series. In the videos, he can be seen in an empty studio with nothing but his iPad and laptop, singing into a microphone as he controls the sound using his devices. His most recent releases, uploaded on YouTube over a year ago, include Forcefield, Young and Black Hole.

Siddiqui describes his own sound as “electronic pop music” that has “an experimental tilt to it”. Now 17, he first started making music when he was only 10-years-old. At the age of 14, Siddiqui first began putting his music out on social media. “I realised that it was possible, that I could put [my music] out there and even if nobody hears it, I’ve done what I can to put it out there.”

His first few songs did not attract a wide listernership. “Friends and family liked it,” he says when asked about his first single. A year later, in 2015, Siddiqui happened upon the Facebook page of LMM. He saw a post inviting demos and sent his music in. That year, Siddiqui performed for the first time in his life at LMM. “I fell flat on my face as soon as I walked on stage ... I couldn’t even look at the audience after that.”

But the experience ultimately turned out to be a positive one. His faux pas aside, Siddiqui was well-received by the audience and that’s where things picked up for his music. “It wasn’t a sudden spike in my statistics, it took time but that’s where everything started.” He is now regarded as a child prodigy amongst his older peers.

Music performances and concerts are usually commercial and sponsored by brands. Brands want big artists who draw crowds, leaving newer musicians out of the equation. Performers who tend to rely on covers of already famous songs also seem to get preference when being picked for gigs.

Since his second performance at LMM, in 2016, Siddiqui has been working on his album. When asked how the album is coming along, he laughs hesitantly. A lack of resources has been one of the major challenges that he faces. “It’s hard to make a quality product with a laptop from 2013. It crashes and it’s buggy,” he states, “[It] gets a little bit frustrating and it’s a hindrance to the creative process.”

Part of the problem also is that Siddiqui has gotten “just about zero feedback from anybody else.” He explains that most musicians live in Karachi so he doesn’t have the luxury of physical interactions with them.

Rutaba Yaqub, 25, based in Lahore, has faced similar challenges with creating her album. Yaqub’s career in music started when she was picked up by Xulfi to sing backing vocals for Nescafe Basement. In 2017, Yaqub and a friend decided to make a band for the then upcoming Pepsi Battle of the Bands. The band, which decided to call itself Roots, met for the first time the night before they auditioned for the show. Within six hours, they managed to build a chemistry that led to them making it all the way to the top three on the show. Along the way, they made three singles for the show, Mujhse Dur, Khidkiyaan and Pagal Sa.

Since then, Yaqub alongside Roots has been working on releasing an EP of solo songs. She’s released two singles so far, Hold On and When I’m Gone, both of which are available on Patari. While Siddiqui has the luxury of being able to mix and produce his own music, for Yaqub music making is a “collaborative process” between a producer and the musician, with input from both. “In terms of music producers, we have much more options in Karachi,” says Yaqub. There aren’t many music producers in Lahore who work with the kind of sound she makes, which she describes as avant-garde.

For her second release, Hold On, Yaqub chose to work with a musician in Karachi. The song was collaborated over the internet. While she was happy with the end result, she admits it was a difficult process. “We had to go back and forth over Skype and there’s only so much you can say over a telephonic conversation.”

“A lot of people get stuck trying to find producers,” says Noorani, “especially singer-songwriters who aren’t good at production themselves.”

Geographical distance from producers has not been the only obstacle for Yaqub. “Since I’m a new musician, I can’t pay a lot of money [to producers].” She explains that good producers opt for projects that pay, inevitably commercial ones. She can’t demand that they give her work priority because “they have to pay their bills and I’m not paying good money.”

What is the main source of money for an artist looking to make a living? The most basic way to make money off one’s music is to do live performances. But, as Yaqub points out, “There’s not enough gigs happening.” Music performances and concerts are usually commercial and sponsored by brands. Brands want big artists who draw crowds, leaving newer musicians out of the equation. Performers who tend to rely on covers of already famous songs also seem to get preference when being picked for gigs.

When they do manage to release their albums, can these young musicians hope to reach large audiences? “The songs that I’ve released on my own, they don’t have a lot of views, they have a very niche following,” explains Yaqub.

Why don’t they see their music as being commercially viable? “I’m aware it’s not going to sell, it’s in English,” states Noorani.

“My music is in English,” says Yaqub.

“I sing in English. You can’t market English language music to Pakistan,” expounds Siddiqui.

“The mass audience is going to be more perceptive to something in Urdu or a regional language because that is [what] the majority of listeners [speak],” explains Noorani. If you speak to the older generation of artists, the first piece of advice they give you is sing in Urdu, she says. People relate to Urdu music, that’s just how the demographic of the country is. But many young musicians were taught in English-medium schools and are, thus, more comfortable with the language. “It’s just the language I think in,” explains Siddiqui. Music is, after all, a form of self-expression and these musicians choose English because it is their language of expression.

Singing in English could possibly help young musicians reach global audiences but, with an absence of platforms in the country, that seems difficult. “Pieces are missing in the music economy,” says Noorani, “I really wish there was a label I could go to.” Abroad, labels invest in artists’ music, give them PR and distribute their music.

“Imagine there’s a flowchart,” says Noorani. It’s a network of interconnected factors such as distribution, exposure and performance factors. Together, they make a cohesive music economy that is profitable for the artist. In Pakistan, independent bodies exist and try to do their part. Digital platforms such as True Brew TV and Patari do their best to connect artists to audiences. But no cohesive structure exists whereby which an artist has access to all aspects of the facilitation he or she requires.

This situation is largely a result of the lull that came upon Pakistan’s entertainment industry in the ’90s. Together with piracy, it ensured that distribution companies in Pakistan all but shut down.

Another link largely missing here are streaming services that musicians can make royalties off. While it’s easy to put one’s music on Soundcloud and YouTube, it’s still not possible to make money off these websites in Pakistan. Patari is one online distribution platform that has done two pay-outs to some of the artists it has featured in the three years since its inception. But, Yaqub says, “it’s still not enough.”

“The major problem is that no one is taking the ownership to create that [space],” says Noorani. They don’t see it as financially viable. “This is so strange because [music] is the one art form that transcends all social boundaries.”

The single biggest challenge that the music industry is facing, according to Yaqub, is a lack of educated music management. “I don’t know anyone in the industry right now who actually has a proper degree in music management,” she explains. “If [artists] have a manager, it’s their brother or their best friend.” She stresses on the need for music management degrees in Pakistan so that musicians have access to people who are well-trained in how to go about the task of putting musicians out there while being mindful of their creative needs.

Both Noorani and Yaqub are working in other capacities in the industry to support themselves and their music. Yaqub works at Patari. Noorani currently works as a manager for Strings. When asked if he sees music being his source of bread and butter in the future, Siddiqui replies conclusively, “I don’t think that’s likely.”

“I decided early on that I cannot pull off music full-time,” explains Noorani. “I don’t want to have to change my sound.” Being commercially successful would mean having to cater to the audiences. “If I have a day job that funds my music, I don’t have to be helpless in any way.”

Yaqub has similar reasons for not wanting to rely on her solo music for money. “I don’t want to limit myself to one genre,” she says. If you’re catering to an audience, you have to cater to what they expect of you. She wants to continue making her music for herself and hopes that Roots will be a profitable venture for her and her fellow band members.

For Noorani, having a job comes with a personal conflict. “The trade off was really difficult.” She had to let the musical side of herself go a little to focus on her managerial career. “I see people on stage getting that euphoric feeling that I missed out on,” she says. Her album, named Munasib (Adequate) was mainly driven by a desire to prove to herself that the musician in her is thriving.

Despite the challenges they are facing, these young musicians continue to work on their albums, quite simply because they love music. Noorani describes music making as a cathartic process. “If I’ve written 20 to 30 songs, only five of them are for everyone. The rest are mine.” Yaqub echoes this sentiment. “[My music] is a way of expressing myself … I’m doing it for my own experimentation, to see how I’m evolving as a musician.”

“I think this speaks true for all of us: the process of making music is most of the fun,” explains Siddiqui. “If you get critical recognition, that’s also great, but that’s a side [factor].”

“A few years ago, at the Lux Style Awards, when [electronic music artist] Slowspin won for Best Emerging Talent, for me that’s a signifier that there is going to be change,” says Abdullah Siddiqui. There is music being made, even today, in Pakistan that is different and not adherent to more commercial sounds, he explains and this, to him, is evidence of a “slow-moving change”. Like Rutaba Yaqub and Natasha Noorani, he is hopeful that his change will lead to a musical landscape where people will be listening to new music and will appreciate what makes it different.

Published in Dawn, ICON, June 15th, 2018