| Zeest | |
|---|---|
Skip performing Live at Kathmandu, Nepal |
|
| Background information | |
| Origin | Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan |
| Genres | Country rock, blues-rock, Rock |
| Years active | 2003- present |
| Labels | Independent music |
| Website | Official Website |
| Members | |
| Saqib Abdullah (Skip) | |
Zeest is a Pakistani rock band. Zeest (زیست) is a Persian word meaning "life" and "existence", while synonymously it can be used as hope, faith, light etc.
The band was formed in Karachi, Pakistan in 2003 by Saqib Abdullah a.k.a Skip, who is the singer, songwriter & composer.[1]
On 29 January 2009, the band released their second song, 100 Rupai on the Internet.[2]
Contents |
B.C. Sutta also known as a Smoker’s Anthem, is a pop rock oriented acoustic song. It is the first super hit Urdu song that includes swear and slang words. The mastermind behind the entire song is Skip (Saqib) who wrote the catchy lyrics and transformed them into a song.
B.C. Sutta is all about the journey in an average guy’s life, starting from his mid teens when his dad catches him smoking with his friends. Later on, when he joins college and has a girlfriend, she asks him to quit smoking. Frustrated, he roams the streets before getting married, but there too, he misses his cigarette. Sutta actually means cigarette in Urdu and Punjabi slang[3]
Doston mein baitha main sutta pee raha (With friends, I was sitting and having a smoke)
Abba ne mujhe sutta peete dekh liya (Dad saw me while I was smoking…)
Ghar jab main pahuncha mera danda ho gaya… (When I reached home I got a pasting)
BC sutta, sutta na mila! ( I didn’t get a smoke!)
At a literal level, it does glorify the forbidden pleasure of smoking. But substitute sutta with anything else you have been denied in life and it works equally well![4]
Skip was invited for a live jam session in Zeeshan Hayat’s Feedback studio (formerly known as DRB Studios) in the early days of April 2005. At the end of the session, he was encouraged to record his satirical song, “B.C. Sutta”, live. Skip had previously played the song only at parties and informal gatherings among friends. After some rehearsals and a few takes, the song was recorded live. Zeeshan edited the song while Skip launched it on the Internet so people could download it for free.[5]
Mid-day afternoon daily, a Mumbai-based tabloid conducted an interview titled "No Sutta Without Fire" on 15 January 2006.[6] Skip claims:
| “ | B C Sutta has brought about a revolution among the younger generation. The West is very open; they show whatever they do in their social and street life, they use bad words in their movies, novels, songs etc. But we Indo-Pakis are too afraid to portray our real culture and ourselves in front of the world. Well bad words are part of every society. The F-word can be found in the new Oxford Dictionary and even swear words like BC and MC are seen in books like Ferozson’s Urdu dictionary. These words are an important part of our language and literature. If we don’t use them, who will?[6] | ” |
| “ | I created this satirical, comical, slang song just for fun, but I always wanted to compose a song that could reflect my life story and that of other optimistic losers too. The song is so popular only because every average “tapori bachcha” can relate to it.[6] | ” |
In an interview with Dance With Shadows, an online Indian magazine:
| “ | Well at a certain level I did expect it, because prior to the recording wherever I played it, people irrespective of what age they belong to, always appreciated it and it also became a requested song among my friends. I always knew that people are going to love and appreciate it but I never thought millions of people all across the globe are going to relate to this song. I had written this song to represent my own life story and initially I thought it is just about the life of an average tapori boy. But, later I discovered that I was wrong because people irrespective of their gender and age could easily relate to it.[7] | ” |
| “ | Basically the philosophy of this song for us is not only the love of sutta (a smoke) but also a song dedicated to all the aims that haven’t been fulfilled and all the things in the world that have gone against our will.[6] | ” |
| “ | Well I would say that the purpose of the song is not to point out swear words used in the song at all. But I used it to show our anxiety, depression just like the way it is used in a daily street life where nobody damn cares what they have said and heard. If we are ashamed of not to listen to it in the song than we should abandon them from our daily lives and write off from popular dictionaries and literature. By the way, if we don’t use these swear words in our songs. Who’s going to?[5] | ” |
| “ | Well the swear words are just a flavor to the song. If you notice, the actual motive of the song is not to mention swear words like BC or MC or any other explicit words. I mentioned the sutta/fag just to convey that sometimes in your life you feel so bad that even your little ambitions, dreams and objectives are not fulfilled, and you have to struggle so bad for everything…[7] | ” |
A series of articles were published critically acclaiming the song in southeast-Asia’s media. Some critics, especially Rashmi Bansal the founder-editor of youth magazine JAM claim that it might be the turning point in South Asian media.[4][8] Within no time,B.C. Sutta became one of the most discussed songs in forums and web logs.[9][10][11]
Skip was interviewed by India’s leading newspaper Hindustan Times, but instead of publishing the whole interview it was only published as a small column titled as "Songs Mom Won’t Listen To."[12] Later the STAR News Delhi conducted a telephonic interview of Skip, and Skip provided them a video clip for the live jam session of performing B.C. Sutta. Both of them were planned to be telecast on 30 minute show, but they were censored.[13]
On 29th january 2009 Zeest officially released a demo version of their new song titled "100 Rupai" (pronounced as "sau rupay" stands for "100 Rupees") which they made available for download on their official website.According to their blog post the song is "A Treat for the Current Global RecessionThe song is a story of a financially frustrated Indo-Pak’s youth life.At these financial hard times throughout the world, we pray to have an economic prosperity & growth throughout South Asia." The song contains zero abusive words.They offered a special thanks to Sushubh Mittal for his assistance on their blog.