#chee malabar

VB:  You have been doing this work for many years in parallel to writing and performing music. I would imagine that the prison-based and youth work must have influenced your earlier music in various ways, but with the new album you’ve actually put that work at the center of a body of writing and music, drawing on the stories and experiences and perspectives of those you work with. When and how did you decide to do this – to bring these two worlds that you inhabit (of music and community-based work) together in such a direct way?

CM: It happened organically and quite suddenly. Kooz, my producer on this record, had been prodding me to create a narrative driven album for some time, but I wasn’t ready then and didn’t know how I would go about tying an album around a unified theme.  But then I found myself delving deeper into the youth work and I had a series of really profound and moving experiences in the span of two years.  I found myself writing about it as a way to process all that I had seen, heard and felt.  I couldn’t ignore it and no matter if I tried to write something else, I kept coming back to this work and the stories I now carried with me, and as soon as I sketched out a few songs I felt that I could and should marry these passions of youth work and music. 

VB:  One of the things that is striking about the album is the way in which you manage neither to pass judgment on nor romanticize those whose stories you are telling; the lives that you present on these tracks are complex and contradictory and messy in a way that is ultimately both powerful and respectful. This is not an easy thing to achieve as a writer – it takes a certain kind of sensitivity and care. Can you talk a bit about the process you went through to transform the stories of those you have been working with into written and then performed verse? Where did these songs begin, how did you develop them - narratively, lyrically, and musically - and what were the challenges in representing the lives and stories entrusted to your telling?

CM:  Most of the songs on this album began with a line or two or a journal entry post-workshop or retreat.  Often, I let Kooz’s beats inform the mood of the piece and took it from there.

With respect to developing the pieces, I felt I had to keep my own voice out of the way as much as possible and not infringe on the narrator(s), which was a challenge, because so much of what I know about being an emcee is about telling your own story and positioning yourself a certain way in the world.  One of the things I tried to do on each verse and song was to really think about who is telling the story and why and in the end I found that the album is essentially narrated by a loose knit family if you will––who make up the title of the album. 

I believe that when someone shares their true story with us, we are changed in some way, and with that comes a responsibility to carry it with dignity.  I’m sure having worked on Bengali Harlem, you felt this responsibility as well.  I know you worked from archival material and stories and I wonder if you found yourself imagining the lives they lived outside of the documented record and how to fill in the blanks, which I’m sure were so complex given the era.  

Although I’m dealing with present day stories, I think the challenge is always whether I’m capturing the emotional truth. 

VB: As an immigrant of color and a child of immigrants, there is a set of experiences that you’ve lived and witnessed and been immersed in, and as someone who now has worked for many years with incarcerated youth and their families, there is another set of experiences that you’ve witnessed and been immersed in. What do you see as the points of overlap or intersection between those two sets of experiences, between the daily lives of two populations that have been demonized and criminalized in different ways?

CM: I immigrated to the United States when I was twelve.  Every notion, idea and dream that I held about America (exported to India and generally exclusionary of non whites) prior to moving, was erased immediately.  I first moved to pre Silicon boom San Francisco and there wasn’t a South Asian enclave in the city. I was perhaps one of two South Asians at my school.  My neighborhood and school friends were Hispanic, Black and Asian and many were/are sons and daughters of immigrants.   I thought that this is what America essentially was, a tribe of people from all over the world.  I didn’t see a marked difference between my own immigrant experience and what was happening to a lot of my friends in the streets.   It was only when I went off to college that I met other South Asians and realized how different their American experience was than mine. 

Living in New York, especially during 9/11 and after, really brought a large swath of people who considered themselves “other” in the black-white American binary in direct conversation with what’s been happening to the African American community in this country for centuries.

I identify deeply with the African American experience and Hip Hop culture, it gave me a sense of myself when I didn’t have other models to reflect back.  I identify deeply with the immigrant experience and also with what it means to be American.   I want my work to add to the American narrative—and for me this means to be in conversation and solidarity with those of us who are living in the “dark spaces”—excluded from the most basic civil rights through insidious laws, gang injunctions, and a public school system/dropout factory that feeds the prison industrial complex.   

VB: Finally, what can you tell us about  “New Yorkstani,” the track you contributed to Beats for Bangladesh? How did you choose this track for the compilation?

CM:  When I first immigrated to America, like so many millions before me, it was via New York.  As I grew up and learned about Ellis Island, the Harlem Renaissance, and now Bengali Harlem, I was always fascinated by the city’s richness and history.  For me, New York City has always been a cultural port of entry into America, and having lived there and worked in different communities throughout the five boroughs, I remember watching cultural communities bleed into each other and change over the years and make space for new communities. 

“New Yorkstani”, I hoped reflected the memories of someone who had lived there almost his entire life and understood the enduring spirit of the city and juxtaposed it with a young South Asian family and son claiming their new identity as New Yorkstanis.  There is, as you know, a huge Bengali community in New York, and given what happened there recently with the collapse of the garment factory, I thought the song might resonate in some way with the families of those who left people behind in Bangladesh. 

VB: Thank you for your work, Chee … and keep dropping those keys.

Download your copy of Beats for Bangladesh today.

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