Meesha Shafi has been making waves with her voice and music. From soulful Mein to groovy Na Tuttya Ve, she has managed to conquer unchartered territory both as a singer and songwriter and has done so with style. Her recent song, the loud and flamboyant Hot Mango Chutney Sauce is yet another example of the Dasht-e-Tanhai crooner experimenting with the large palette of colours and ideas.
Hot Mango Chutney Sauce is vibrant, spirited and bright – a perfect recipe for a song layered with desi references and powerful jibes. In an interview with Forbes, Meesha explained how Hot Mango Chutney Sauce isn’t just a dance number but holds a very imperative message that needed to be told.
“I do believe art and the artist’s role in society have always been linked to the politics of their environment,” the Sakal Ban songstress commented, adding, “Whether that environment is internal and leads to introspective work or external, in which case, socio-political commentary has always been widely seen in art through the ages.”
She went on to add, “For Hot Mango Chutney Sauce, I wanted to create a juicy, vibrant and celebratory depiction of South Asian culture and how it can be embraced in a modern-day context. For this, we have to bring up the colonial hangover as well as the patriarchy and its influence on the brown woman’s experience of life.” The artists added the song also shed light on how “our identity is sized up based on material clout and further, how the marginalised, are made to colour within the lines set by society and must not overstep in the process of having fun.”
And she nailed it to perfection. “My intention was to create an audio/visual texture that lets [South Asians] around the world bring our own cultural identity into the pop culture spotlight. An attempt at reinterpreting or even reclaiming how fabulous and rich our heritage is and how it fits into a contemporary conversation,” she went on.
Speaking about the intention behind the song and why she decided to opt for a rather peppy take on a grave message, Meesha remarked, “In my experience, bringing up serious conversations like this in a dry manner tires everyone. I deliberately decided to package this conversation in the hyper pop genre sonically and make it really glossy and irresistible visually so that the audience could be tricked into having some food for thought.” She added, “At the least, they get entertained. At the most, they start reading between the lines. I’m happy to say it’s been a very successful experiment.” This is the second time the award-winning artist has teamed up with the 20-year-old Abdullah Siddiqui.
Meesha continued, “Because of that palette being so colourful, at the moment I am pursuing two polar opposite directions creatively. One being very loud, political and unapologetic i.e., Hot Mango Chutney Sauce, and the other, deeply spiritual, very gentle, emotionally vulnerable and oftentimes beautiful but sad, like Mein for instance. I plan on pursuing both. Life wouldn’t be complete without both night and day.”
