Artists: Najam ShirazVarious

By Nadeem F. Paracha

There has never been any doubt whatsoever about Najam’s crackling talents ever since he broke through with passionate ditties like ‘Un Sey Nain Mila Kay Dekho(1993) and the angst-ridden ‘Sona Chahta Hoon’ (1995). But the man has never done any real justice to his promising beginnings by restlessly jumping from one pop genre to another, and also from one heart-felt ideology to the next. His 1995 debut, though musically inconsistent, boldly spouted a few old-school socialist anthems, which were then subliminally tackled on what is his finest release so far (1998’s Roopnagar). But he then fell for dumb bhangra-pop nothingness on his next album, Bhangra, and for tea-selling anthems in the hotchpotch confines of Jaisey Chaho Jeeo. Outside his already contradicting pop ways, he suddenly 'saw the light' (ala JJ and Amir Adnan) and got down to putting his wife in a hijab and enlighten the masses by relating the “true meaning of the Koran!” I’m sure ‘Jaisey Chaho Jeeo’ is definitely not his wife’s anthem anymore, if you know what I mean?