By Sacha Wedner, AsAmNews Intern
In his new album O Say, Can You See?, Indian American musician Zeshan B, blends both his passions for music-making and social justice advocacy. The tracks on the album focus on multiple “low points” of recent American history, including the murder of George Floyd, the 2020 elections, and the Jan 6. attack on the United States Capitol. Despite the sensitive nature of the subject matter, each of the tracks are infused with messages of courage and hope for the future.
Zeshan’s career as a musician is nothing short of impressive. His 2017 breakthrough album, Vetted, reached #1 on the iTunes’ World Music chart. His latest album, Melismatic, released in 2020, was described as “music that champions Brown Power”, by NPR. Zeshan has previously performed for former U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama and has played at festivals and venues at the Kennedy Center, Bonnaroo, Electric Forest, The White House, and more.
Zeshan has also appeared on The Late Night with Stephen Colbert, MSNBC Morning Joe, and PBS Newshour, and has received praise from Rolling Stone, NPR Music and Weekend Edition, NBC, Salon, Democracy Now and many more.
Mountaintop, a single from O Say, Can You See?, was released on June 24th. The track was written on June 24, 2022, after Zeshan learned about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe V. Wade. Some of the lyrics in the song include “they want to own our bodies, they want to own our minds” but we have to keep fighting for freedom and equality.”, and ” you wanna see the change, you gotta be the change,”.
“As angry as I felt about this shameful Supreme Court decision, I reminded myself that we cannot take our rights for granted.”, said Zeshan in a statement released by Shore Fire. “There will always be forces at play who work tirelessly hard to strip us of our dignity and our freedoms. As the song says, we gotta keep climbing.”.
The album itself also mixes Chicago soul and R&B, gospel music, classical orchestrations and jazz improvisation, and the Urdu music Zeshan grew up with. According to Zeshan, some of the artists that helped influence O Say, Can You See? included Bing Crosby, Nelson Riddle, Gill Evans, and Frank Sinatra. Other influences included Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Bill Withers, and Michael Kiwanuka, who helped influence the musical and social justice elements of O Say, Can You See? as well.
On top of all this, O Say, Can You See? is executive produced by none other than former U.S. Attorney for New York’s Southern District, Preet Bharara. During his time as a federal prosecutor, Bharara went after 100 wall street executives for insider trading, prosecuted terrorists as well as arm and drug traffickers.
According to Zeshan, he and Bharara met when he was performing for the book launch for writer Wajahat Ali, who turned out to be a mutual friend. Bharara was also one of the panelists at the event and was asked to read from Ali’s new book.
“We hit it off backstage, we met in the green room, and we just clicked like that,” Zeshan explained to AsAmNews. “It was almost like we were related, like we were brothers in a previous life. And, you know, our people believe in reincarnation, so I guess it’s possible.”.
From that point onward, the two would regularly meet whenever Zeshan was in New York and connected on many different levels. He also said that he came up with the idea to bring Bharara onto O Say, Can You See? as he was writing the album.
“He loved the songs, and he told me he’d like to get behind it in whatever way he can”, said Zeshan. “And I thought, well there might be a way of you doing it where you’re really, you know, have a big say in the process and you have a stake in this music.”.
Zeshan then asked Bharara to be the album’s executive producer. Even though Bharara was initially taken back, it didn’t take much convincing for him to join the project.
“Over the time I got to know him, I saw how creative he was, how much of an auteur he is.”, explained Zeshan. “He’s a film buff. He knows about music, much more than people would imagine. He’s an avid listener of music. He’s an avid student of history.”
“I was just floored by the music, I was floored by his voice, I was floored by the message in those songs,” said Bharara in a Variety interview, “and we became fast friends right away.”.
“I have very musical family — my wife and my three kids are all musicians;”, continued Bharara. “I don’t play anything but I love music. Zeshan would tell me about songs to listen to and his thoughts about music, and we learned a lot from each other. He started talking about this album, and a few months later he made a proposal for me to executive produce, and I said yes, because Zeshan has a voice that is just out of this world. All this other stuff is great, but it’s undergirded with his magical, transporting voice and musicianship.”.
Despite the ambition and talent behind O Say, Can You See? producing the album proved to be a challenging endeavor.
According to Zeshan, he wanted to create the album, the “old-fashioned” way by getting an orchestra in the room and recording everything together, saying that its “…Just not done anymore, we don’t have that big studio system that does that sort of thing, especially for independent artists.” The project was also interrupted by COVID-19, and Zeshan was to record his vocals remotely to save time and energy.
However, as described by Zeshan, “that ended up being a huge mistake, because the fact is, there’s nothing to replace me being in the room with my songwriting partner Mike, who’s my producer. Just that collaborative spirit, that in-person presence, was not there in the first pass of vocal takes.” None of those recordings were used, and in the end, Mike flew out from Los Angeles to New York to record Zeshan’s vocals in-person.
As for any aspiring musicians, Zeshan has a couple important pieces of advice; do your research and as much homework as you can.
“Listen to as much music as you can, both from the past and present. I think there’s something to be said about music that is not generated by any computer effects, music that is more organic,” says Zeshan. “I think we’re at a time now where commercial music doesn’t have that same something-ness, that same sort of feeling that imbues spirit that it used to have.”
“If you look at pop music from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, even if they’re singing about goody-goody gumdrops kinda stuff, it’s still really beautiful and the lyrics are very pleasing, there’s an element of poetry. We’re lacking that now … I’d love to see aspects of that come back … not everything that is old is necessarily bad, and not everything that is new is necessarily good. That’s not to say that everything that is old was great either, there were things from the past that were not good, but I think the past can inform us…”.
There are still many ongoing “low points” in American history. America’s policy regarding Israel and Palestine, the sharp rise of anti-semitism and Islamophobia, and the 2024 election are to name but a few. To many, the future looks bleak. Zeshan understands where this sentiment is coming from, after all, we all breath the same air, even though the air is stale. That doesn’t mean he has a few things to say.
“First of all, we’ve been here before as a country. I don’t think it’s been as bad as it is now … I’ve talked with old-timers who were there during the depression, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War, and most of them say, unequivocally, that this is way worse”, said Zeshan. “But we have seen hard times as a nation before, and there are so many shining examples of individuals, and leaders, and movements, who sort of rose from the ashes of those difficult times.”.
Another thing that Zeshan has realized is that “when you think about optimism versus pessimism … it’s very natural to be pessimistic right now. At times I am. But one thing I remind myself is that the optimists and pessimists. They both die the same way…The only difference is that the optimist will have lived a better life, … so the way I see it, you don’t have a choice…I think it’s better to be optimistic because you might as well…”.
“If we do these things on the homefront, we’re better equipped to fight for society and for justice if you have a strong base within yourself … Might as well be optimistic ’cause then you’ll live a better life, you’ll have a better outlook on life, and you’ll have better relationships with the people around you.”.
“Another thing I tell people is that … I think everybody’s really focused on the things and it’s understandable, but I think there’s something to be said within our own networks, within our families, within our own friend-circles, to build those relationships and make those good, and to help out those who are closest to us. In other words, building our own house, making ourselves strong within our own circles…before we go out and march for others.”.
O Say, Can You See? is set to release on Friday, July 26th, and is currently available for pre-order on vinyl. For more information, please visit Zeshan’s website, his socials, and Youtube channel.
AsAmNews reached out to Bharara’s team for an interview but did not hear back by our deadline.
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