What do you get when you put four powerhouse performers in the current music scene — all of whose stars are rising — together in one place? You get Left Right.

Left Right features vocalist Ali Sethi, fresh off his historic performance (as the first Pakistani) in the Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival in the United States. It also features his co-singer Shae Gill, with whom he collaborated in his global hit song Pasoori. Left Right also features singer, songwriter and producer Abdullah Siddiqui, who was also one of the producers on the last season of Coke Studio. And finally, the last artist featured on Left Right is the man of the moment, singer-songwriter Maanu.

The song is three minutes 16 seconds long and in that short time frame — almost half of how long songs just a decade ago used to be — there’s a lot going on, but somehow it works. Let’s unpack.

The song begins with a slow synced percussion sample and bass chords on the keyboard. Ali Sethi opens the Punjabi-Urdu-English track. He slowly and softly croons words of longing into the microphone before picking up the pace by the time the second verse comes along. Left Right has now become danceable. There’s a sense of impatience, anguish in Ali’s voice as he leaves off his section on an extended stronger vocal note.

Maanu enters the song with the verses that sound like they inspired the title of the track:

Baby push it to the left/ Now push it to the right/ Kurri chal meray naal [Girl come with me]/ We ain’t got all night/ Light a fire in my heart/ You can have my life/ I swear no lies/ Everything’s on sight

Left Right features Ali Sethi,Abdullah Siddiqui, Maanu and Shae Gill and is a collaboration for the ages

Abdullah Siddiqui interjects, softly crooning: Give it up, give it up/ Light a fire now/ Give it up, give it up/ Get me higher now.

Together they’re performing what comes across as the chorus. It’s hard to tell nowadays, songs don’t follow the ‘old’ structure and flow more freely nowadays.

Shae Gill finally enters the song as the female voice responding to this chorus of men aching for their beloved. I love how she teasingly sings about how she approves and enjoys the song and dance the men have put up (seemingly) for her attention.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the crux of the song. Left Right is a dance of courtship and love. And much like peacocks or the male birds of paradise, the male voices in Left Right are showing all of their brilliant feathers, hoping to dazzle and charm the one female they’re hoping to court. And she rightfully has no qualms about enjoying every second of it.

You see the same dance, the same effort put into putting up a show to attract potentials in pretty much every species of animals, including ours. Left Right simply embodies that in song form. With the female voice being treated as and behaving like the queen that she is.

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 7th, 2023