Videoterveiset Islamabadista: Pakistanilaisräppäri fanittaa Suomea ja näkee soundit väreinä

Please click to original story and video, by YLE:

Here’s a quick translation of the story:

Video greetings from Islamabad: Pakistani rapper is a big fan or Finland and see sounds in colors.

Rapper Adil Omar find the stories for his songs from his own life. He doesn’t interfere the bubbling politics of his own country.
– Your voice is bright orange, maybe it has a hint of yellow. My own voice ranges from sheep to black, depending on the situation there may be a little reddish brown.

Adil Omar has just woken up, the clock is approaching seven o’clock in the evening. The computer starts up again at his home near Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, in the Bani Gala district. Night is the best time for music. There is room in the darkness to think, for example, of sound colors.

Adil Omar sees his sounds in colors. He says that his composing is like painting the audio, he does music with eyes to ears.  In early February, the final release of the Mastery video released from the upcoming album is underway. The entire album will be released next year. – I believe I was born for music. Rap chose me, I’ve wanted to do this since I was 8 years old.

Ideas keep flowing in mostly from his own feelings and experiences. His imagination is riding with a horse. The studio wall has a large-scale painting where Adil is dressed in a leather jacket and rides on a white horse like Napoleon did. 

Rap’s rage is healing.

There is no special message in Omar’s music. 

– You need to do what you want to do and be what you want to be, but my music is more made to heal and empower myself. I don’t have any message in my songs – at least not just to have a message. Based on my own experiences I want to help people. If other people are feeling similar things, music can help them, says Adil Omar.

With his own experiences he refers to his tough childhood. Something he doesn’t want to open more but his father’s sudden death can be heard and seen in his songs. In his earlier music video Adil rages and shouts at his father’s portrait, his loss is big.

– My father was my eternal hero. His death made me what I am nowadays. I had to take responsibility for my family and myself.

Adil doesn’t want to take any stand on the social faults and problems in the Pakistani society because he feels he cannot influence any of those. Pakistan international image could be better, problems are almost endless from the huge fiscal depth to corruption and honor killings. In February, the decades long fight over Kashmir between Pakistan and India became a battle between the air forces of two nuclear armed country. Adil Omar doesn’t worry about those, he is on his own mission.

– I may look angry but I am not. Without my music I could be very angry.

Earlier album had a producer from Loimaa, Finland.

Adil Omar is the most known artist in Pakistan’s so far small but growing rap scene. He doesn’t enjoy any public life and rarely meet his fans. He told us that he has not received any threats from the radicals in Pakistan either. 

However, he is not complete staying in his home studio. In the digital world the bits of his songs are shared around the world. Rap is international and even one his records released in the beginning of this decade, was produced by a Finnish producer Virsi. He says that his Pakistani friend is a very unique musician and artist.

– Adil is very focused, he knows what he wants to do. There is a certain theme in his songs and albums. It is also easy to work with him. Many indie artists see things in very narrow way, and they are not open for any suggestions from others. Adil is very honest and his work ethics are brilliant, also with communication.

Back in 2011 they worked for two weeks in Loimaa, South-West Finland, where Virsi lived that time.

– We mostly worked with templates and in the end I got Adil vocals which I then built into songs. Nowadays everything goes online so you don’t have to be in the same place. But then you loose plenty of changes music video cameos, he says. 

Cameo means visits of other artists or celebrities in the music videos. For example the Mushroom Cloud Effect video has Everlast and Xzibit, he tells.

Virsi tells that nowadays they are mostly working with some new song ideas and provide help with the production. The Finnish-Pakistani cooperation has worked so seamlessly that Adil Omar would like to head to north again.

– I love Finland. Somewhere there in the middle of Loimaa’s forests I didn’t have time to see anything else, but I would like to come back soon. A few years ago, we were planning to perform with Redrama in Finland but maybe it will happen someday. I have friends in Finland who just do amazing music up there.