Fun-da-mentally Sound - An Interview With Fun-da-mental

'Britain's greatest gift to the world has been the liberal
democratic tradition. This country has no history of, or tolerance
or capacity for, political extremism.' - Melody Maker article
accusing rappers Fun-da-mental of 'hysterical absolutism'

     Over the last couple of years British alternative pop music
has become increasingly concerned with political issues. The Anti-
Nazi League carnival which took place earlier this year was an
explicit attempt to revive the marriage of music and political
activism which the Rock Against Racism movement epitomised in the
seventies. But this marriage has had its problems. Throughout the
eighties, the alternative music sector, covered by the papers
Melody Maker and New Musical Express was largely predicated on the
superiority of guitar-based rock music over dance music. This
musical opposition easily slipped into a racist opposition of
'serious' 'white' music to 'frivolous' 'black' music. The most
successful band to emerge from this sector, The Smiths, stated this
explicitly. Ironically during this period the music papers, in the
main, ignored the emergence of rap as a combination of 'serious'
social comment and 'frivolous' dance music. When a reader wrote to
one of the music papers asking why no black acts were featured, he
was told that sales figures dropped when a black star was featured
on the cover.
     The repoliticisation of the alternative music press over the
lost few years has therefore not come easily. The attempt to
provide a half-decent coverage of rap has given support to acts
with an explicit anti-racist stance, such as Asian/African-
Caribbean rappers Fun-da-mental, while ignoring less sensational
acts. Such support is itself highly provisional as the quote above
indicates. Fun-da-mental, who define themselves explicitly in terms
of a 'no-nonsense' anti-racist politics and a commitment to Islam,
have recently been accused of extremism. Articles on Fun-da-mental
in the music papers are now peppered with ridiculous diatribes on
the threat of Islam, and defences of Western values. Discussion of
racism and fascism then gets reduced to the level a tarring Fun-da-
mental with the same brush as the BNP - both equally intolerant and
extremist'. CARF spoke to Aki Nawaz aka Propa-Gandhi about the
politics of their music.

CARF: What role can music play in the anti-racist struggle? What
contribution can Fun-da-mental make? 

Aki Nawaz: We have come out from day one as an anti-racist band
with a no-nonsense attitude. Two years down the line, people are
being a bit more accommodating to our attitude and are respecting
the message more, Fun-da-mental is just a band - it's no big deal.
Most of the anti-racist movements and organisations are far more
important than us - they are obviously on the frontline. We have
irritated the BNP and a lot of liberal-minded people who talk about
multi-culturalism but don't understand what it means. When we
released the album we remained absolutely true. We're not
interested in being successful in the 'music business', but in
exposing things and telling people the way it is. Any layman on the
street can say what Fun-da-mental say - we've just got a platform
to say it. There are a lot of bands who say piss all and just see
politics as a fashion. People say 'oh you're a political band' like
it was a trend - we're not political in that sense - we are
actually sincere, we want things to change. A lot of bands are
political, they just don't want to go out there and say it because
they're scared about record sales.

CARF: The video for your single Dogtribe was banned on daytime TV
after it depicted a violent racist attack. Is your message getting
through?

AN: The Dogtribe video should never have been banned - it should
have been put on daytime TV purely so some young child could look
at it and say 'well why has that guy just got beaten up by these
idiots?' There were only three guys attacking on the video when in
reality usually it's 10 or 20 beating up one guy, so it was a very
responsible video. In the bigger scheme of things they are
accomodating us a bit more cos they can't ignore us. There is
obviously a positive element to getting banned because people go
'why are they getting banned?' It adds more substance to our
argument.

CARF: So is the message more important than the music?

AN: Always has been. The platform means people take notice and take
it seriously. The music in itself makes a statement - the clashes
of culture, fighting. Some of the clashes are about who we've been,
how we feel, how I feel as a second generation Asian and how the
third generation feel. There's a lot of anger, a lot of beauty,
humbleness, aggressiveness, frustration, sincerity and passion that
makes the music what it is.

CARF: Your music combines rap with traditional Asian sounds and
radical black/anti-racist lyrics. Is this a conscious attempt to
promote African-Asian unity against racism?

AN: There should be unity between Afro-Caribbeans and Asians
because the struggles are exactly the same. They should connect -
one can help the other. As far as rap music is concerned, music
belongs to anybody and everybody. There is a lot of rap music in
Indian classical music - look at raags and the way they are recited
- it can almost be seen as rap so there's a lot of connections.
There's a lot of punkiness and underground elements in Indian
classical music that don't get acknowledged. Music has no
boundaries - it can all speak to each other. Its not a conscious
thing that we put together - that's just how it feels it should be
done.

CARF: What do you think about the growth in Asian youth culture?

AN: Because of the bhangra scene, the stigma the Asian community in
England used to attach to musicians has calmed down a bit. The
reason for losing that stigma isn't the right reason - the music.
Some parents have seen that Apache Indian has made loads of money
and drives round in Mercs - the materialism has made it acceptable
and that's the wrong reason. But at the end of the day there has to
be a starting point. I have tremendous respect for the Asian Dub
Foundation, Hustlers HC and The Kaliphz. I think it is improving
because there's never really been an Asian youth culture before.
Politically, we've been too complacent, especially our parents'
generation who said 'hold back'. As new generations start learning
about history it creates anger and you just say 'why', and you are
going to say 'why' until you know that something's being done about
it. There has to be some form of payback - imperialism and
colonialism is all part of racism and until that is addressed, we
have to get a lot harder, especially from a black perspective -
even just from a human perspective.

CARF: Where do you stand on fundamentalism?

AN: We're living on the edge and that's why there's a massive rise
in fanaticism especially amongst Muslims who are joining
organisations like the Kalifah. I'm not saying that's wrong, but
it's a result of other things that are failing them, they're being
led that way because no-one is doing anything about what should be
done. Then you get the whiteman going 'they're all fanatics' but he
has put them in the position of having to be fanatics.

(Fun-da-mental's album Seize The Time is released on Nation
Records.)

[Source: CARF #22 - September/October 1994]