#big fax

[jupiterjoon]

You ain't gonna lose your man to another woman, you're gonna lose your man to Park Jimin

[kidomarus]

chinese food is the best thing to have ever graced us dont even @ me

[souljachase]

[loungin]

[loungin]

[loungin]

[falloutbradreviews]

Artist Spotlight, Episode I: Anik Khan I don’t know what it’s like for other people, but sometimes when I get into a new band or artist, I don’t just listen to one album, I try to dive into a bunch of their projects, so I can get a full idea of who this band or artist is. In the past, I’ve reviewed each album from said band or artist and that can take awhile, especially if I don’t have a lot to say, or there’s a lot of history with them, so I thought I’d bypass that a bit by starting a series where I just talk about an artist or band I like, especially if I’ve been listening to multiple projects of theirs. Instead of reviewing each one, I’ll just talk about them as a whole, and talk about why I enjoy the band or artist in question, ultimately recommending them. These aren’t going to be standard reviews, so don’t expect the same ideas and tone; it’s more or less a casual and conversational look into an artist I’ve been listening to, or one that’s very deserving of your time, but I don’t want to review all of their work at once. I could easily do that, but I’d rather not. These also won’t be extremely comprehensive pieces, either, I don’t plan on diving deep into these artists, or really exploring their history, but I just want to talk about them as a whole, as well as the albums I heard, briefly talking about them as well.

For the first episode of this series, I wanted to talk about a very underrated artist that I found pretty recently -- Anik Khan. He’s a criminally underrated rapper and singer from Queens, New York, and I bring that fact up, because he wants you to know that. For good reason, too -- Born in 1989, Khan is an immigrant, and his family came to the US from Bangladesh in 1993, just when he was five years old. Most of his life, he’s been here, but he’s only just recently gotten his citizenship, and that’s a big part of his most recent projects, including the double EP, Approved and Denied. Being a Bengali immigrant shapes a lot of his music, and one thing I really love about Khan’s music is that he brings his South Asian culture into it. He covered a Bollywood song very recently on a single that came out in May, but he features a lot of language, imagery, and instrumentation that you’d find in his culture. On his debut LP, 2017′s Kites, songs like “Habibi,” “Mango Nectar,” “Cleopatra,” “Tangerine,” “Sunlight,” and many more feature a South Asian flair to them, and it’s really cool. I absolutely love it. I love hearing music from other parts of the world, because here in the US, we’re not exposed to it. On the EP, Approved, where he talks about finally getting his visa, he moves more into a reggaeton, Caribbean, and Latin sound, which is really cool as well. I’ve watched some interviews of him where he’s talked about being influenced by music all over the world, as well as being friends with a diverse group of people while growing up in New York and that’s shaped his music as he’s gotten older. Aside from his sound, which I do think is very unique, especially for a rapper in today’s day and age, his lyrics are also very unique, at least in spots. He does write a lot about the generic money, women, and fame kinds of things, but it comes from a more genuine place, where he is an immigrant, and he’s always wanted to be successful, especially when his parents sacrificed everything for him to be here. In other spots, however, he talks about that, and what it’s like being an immigrant. The song “Columbus” from this debut album, 2017′s Kites, is all about taking the myth of Christopher Columbus and deconstructing it, ultimately talking about how America was built on the backs of people of color, and how people are mislead to believe that he “discovered” America, when in fact, Indigenous people were already here, and people of color built the country even further while being oppressed by the settlers and colonizers. He also just flavors his lyrics with South Asian imagery, like I said earlier, and it makes for a more interesting and unique experience, versus the generic bragging and flexing that a lot of rappers engage in. I also just think he has a great voice; he can rap very well, even though he doesn’t utilize straightforward hip-hop too much anymore (Kites is more or less a hip-hop / R&B record, because he sings a lot on that album, versus outright rapping), but he can also sing very well. A lot of his more recent material has him straight up singing, and it sounds awesome. I’ve also seen some videos he’s done recently of him singing some songs in a live setting, and they sound fantastic. I’d love to see him live, I bet he would sound absolutely fantastic. I wish more people would find him and listen to his work. I found him through Apple Music, but more specifically, on the recommended artists page while going through Riz Ahmed’s page. I was looking up his music, which I’m going to be talking about as well, and I found Anik Khan under the artists that sound similar section at the bottom, and I decided to give him a shot, so I’m glad I did. Khan is a rapper that is proud of his heritage and his culture, whether it’s through his lyrics or the music itself, all the while exploring more styles of music from all over the world. He really takes a lot of influences into his sound, and you don’t hear artists like that very often. Not only that, but he’s proud of where he’s from, and he’s proud of being an immigrant (one of my favorite lyrics is from the single “Big Fax,” where he says, “Damn, it feels good to be an immigrant,” and that’s such a powerful thing to hear), but he’s also proud to be from New York. He loves his city, more specifically his borough, but he also loves his culture. Khan is such an interesting, unique, and really cool artist that I was very happy to find, so I hope more people listen to his music after reading this. That’s what this series is going to be about, at least if I ever take a deep dive into a band or artist and don’t feel like reviewing all of their albums individually, I can write about them as a whole here. As a first episode, I’d say this was pretty successful, so hopefully you’ll join me for the next one.

[bropilot]