Wiring together sampled Afghani documentaries, string orchestrations and tabla drums with key inputs from UK and German rappers like JuJu Rogers, Tiggs Da Author and Nneka, Farhot has made a body of work that amplifies his wide ranging immersion in hip hop culture and his traditional Afghan heritage.
Kabul Fire Vol 2 is so much more than a set of beats and samples, it’s a tour of a creative mind dealing with the challenges faced as an Afghan living in a western culture in Hamburg, having fled Afghanistan with his family as a young boy in the early 80s, during the Afghan and Soviet war.
The recent history of Afghanistan is rich in twists and turns, tragedies, violence, but also filled with the hope of a better tomorrow. So whilst the record has various tracks sampling documentaries about recent wars, and even features the voice of Ahmad Shah Mahsoud (Yak Sher), a resistance fighter of the 1980s, Farhot remonstrates this is a positive record and that “sampling Afghani sounds is a way of bringing us all back together”. With those samples baked into complex song arrangements, Farhot succeeds in creating a nuanced homage to Afghanistan that is full of surprises, breaches, and switches in pace and atmosphere.
Opening track Bale, Bale uses a vocal sample from film director Siddiq Barmak’s Opium Wars, a film according to Farhot, that is not only a must-watch, but also one of the greatest sources of inspiration for Kabul Fire Vol. 2. Layers of piano and the arresting vocal sample create an intensity that offers a glimpse into the desire of the record.
Yak Sher is an instrumental cut which is carried by strings and conveys this mixture of desire, melancholy and beauty that many French hip-hop productions at the end of the 90s transported. The song ends with the haunting poetic plea by the Afghan resistance fighter Ahmad Shah Mahsoud who reminds his people of their own dignity. Pul is pure, energetic and raw. It isn’t hard to tell why Farhot says this beat is one of the best he has ever produced. The fact that this beat is now released on his own album seems like a twist of fate as it was already on the desks of Nas and Action Bronson.
On Sampling Watana, Farhot slows down the pace and gives us a very intimate picture of his world. It’s a sophisticated sample collage, of a traditional folk song which is accompanied by powerful words of fellow Hamburg-based Afghan artist Moshtari. Lead single Feel Ugly takes an altogether different path with its slow motion groove. It also tackles what it’s like to be down on love, and with that, down on ourselves and combines brassy vocals with the nuanced rhymes and word play of Tiggs. It’s a low-slung affair with the vocal shimmying and call and answer flow giving the cut its heartfelt and emotional essence. The duo guest appearance comes on Check with Nneka and JuJu Rogers and is a rhyme-and- harmony heavy slice of hip hop, perhaps the song least connected to a time and place, rather a fresh dose of pop for 2021.
Ahange Qadimi samples one of the most popular singers from Afghanistan Ahmad Zahir and his song, Oh Bano Bano Jana. You can hear the female director Roya Sadat’s film Three Dots sampled in Kalun and Arusi and Sidiq Barmak’s Opium Wars is in Bale, Bale and Biya Bachem. Another of his films Osama is also sampled in Biya Bachem.
Farhot hasn’t been back to Afghanistan since his family claimed asylum in Germany in the 1980s. His relationship with it falls into the love and hate category. Culturally it’s so far removed from where he has been brought up, and with his parents adherence to Afghan cultural norms as he was growing up, he’s wrestled with his identity.
Whilst Kabul Fire Vol 1 “felt more like a beats and pieces album”, despite some heavy collaborations with Ms Dynamite, Giggs and Kano, Kabul Fire Vol. 2 is much more. It’s a collage of Kabul but a Kabul in the heart of Farhot. It’s his musical resistance, his personal tapestry to a country he loves but has no idea whether he will ever be reunited with.