Listen to This Drone-Strike Bashing Pashtun Dance Song

Sonically, “Za Kaom Pa Stargo Stargo Drone Hamla” (My Gaze Is as Fatal as a Drone Attack) isn't anything to drone on about. But even with a stock melody and otherwise _mehhh_ dance moves, "Za Kaom" (My Gaze) is proving to be a legit banger. A real...

by Brian Anderson

September 21, 2012, 5:30pm

Sonically, "Za Kaom Pa Stargo Stargo Drone Hamla" (My Gaze Is as Fatal as a Drone Attack) isn’t anything to drone on about. But even with a stock melody and otherwise mehhh dance moves, “Za Kaom” (My Gaze) is proving to be a legit banger. A real party pleaser. The six-minute track, written by noted Pashto songwriter Maas Khan Wesal and performed by Pashto singer Sitara Younis, is reportedly being bumped at weddings and in cars in and around Peshawar. And yet it’s not the tune’s meteoric rise as a party-friendly dance number that’s drawing it all sorts of attention. People seem far more transfixed by its divisive lyrical content: Aerial drone strikes.

The video had been picking up speed on YouTube – a testament to its politico-militant themed lyrics – before the site was blacked out by the Pakistani government on Monday in the fallout of a recently released, ramshackle anti-Muslim film. (Pro tip: Big-sister site VICE was not only anonymously tipped off to the true identity of the director of ‘Innocence of Muslims’, but also acquired what’s believed to be the near-final 2011 draft of the film’s screenplay.)

It’s but another example of Pashtun poets and musicians reflecting on, and pulling from, all the volatile shit going down throughout the provinces. And a lot of folks aren’t pleased about it. Noted Waziristani poet and lyricist Gul Nazir says he views a tune like “My Gaze” as not just an affront to Pashtun culture and arts, but as doing little but stoke division among its people.

"We should not be proud of these attacks, which are being carried out by foreigners on our land," Mangal tells the Express Tribune. "This needs to be condemned instead of making songs and dancing on its tunes. How can we incorporate such a negative thing into our entertainment industry – something which we are all protesting against?"

Bakhtiar Khattack echoes Mangal’s furstration. Khattack, a composer who owns a recording space in Peshawar, tells the Guardian that yes, over the past five years he and others throughout the region have suffered “a lot of losses because of this war. People hear about so many different incidents that it becomes part of their psyche.” And it’s toxic to society, he goes on, “that these things are being taken lightly and people are even dancing to these sorts of tunes.”

He won’t be singing along: