Sonny Singh is a trumpet and dhol player, singer, songwriter, and educator-activist based in Brooklyn; Huda Asfour is a Palestinian oud player, vocalist, composer, and educator based in New York. Sonny and Huda curated the latest BDS Mixtape from Amplify Palestine — a 13-track double album featuring over 20 international artists, marking two decades since the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. Unboundable: BDS Mixtape Vol. 3 is out today, so to celebrate, Sonny and Huda got on a Zoom call to catch up about the album, their musical origins, and the importance of not letting yourself sink into despair at a time like this.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
Sonny Singh: How are you doing?
Huda Asfour: I’m alright.
Sonny: Yeah. What a time. It’s like nonstop. Are you in town right now?
Huda: No, I’m in Cairo.
Sonny: That’s right, I knew that. And how much longer are you there?
Huda: I honestly have no desire to go back.
Sonny: Yeah, that’s fair.
Huda: I’m gonna have to pull the plug at some point and come back. But I’m not super excited about it.
Sonny: Yeah. It is not a great time to be in the United States.
Huda: Yeah, the last few weeks for me were really difficult, I have to say. Unexpectedly so, actually. The uncertainty of it all is difficult to handle. And then you start wondering, why am I there… If it’s going to be apocalyptic, I might as well be close to my family, at least.
Sonny: I’m glad that you’re with family right now.
Huda: Thank you. How are you?
Sonny: I’m managing. Doing a lot of music. That’s helpful, to sort of pour ourselves into artistic expression right now. And then there’s all the not fun stuff that comes with it, the logistics and booking and all that. But overall, I’m managing, and grateful to be making a lot of music these days and have a pretty busy summer of playing shows and releasing a new album this fall. And, of course, releasing our Amplify Palestine album. So I feel like if we can do that right now, that’s a beautiful thing. And I think a lot of people are hungry for it. So it’s sort of like self-soothing while hopefully soothing others as well.
Huda: Absolutely. It’s a beautiful compilation, for sure. It turned out really nice.
Sonny: It is. Well done. It all began with that session with you, me, and db. And here we are — a double album is upon us! And what a beautiful album it is in the end.
I wonder if we should talk about improvisation a bit. I’m curious how you think about improvisation, and what draws you to it.
Huda: I’ve always liked the uncharted territory of improvisation. It always felt like a deeper capacity for people to listen and express themselves unscripted. I’ve been improvising since I was really young. When I remember music, improvisation was always part of it. But I think the shift happened in 2019. It took a completely different turn for me after I attended Anthony Coleman’s workshop in DC, and I understood that it was a bit of a science, actually. And that it was a subdivision of music — it wasn’t just, “Oh, you improvise.” I didn’t realize that there were improvisation studies, and people wrote about improvisation. That workshop was a catalyst for me to make a decision to quit my day job in academia. It gave me permission to go into improvisation in a deeper way, and dive more into the group psychology of improvisation and understanding where improvisation intersects with the different aspects of our lives.
The biggest territory to try that, was the pandemic. I had to really improve the skill a lot. And then I really understood that when we improvise, we use different parts of our brain. Apparently the language parts of the brain get activated when you improvise, which is something that we don’t do as musicians if we’re reading charted music or playing from memory. I think that it brings a different kind of truth. What about you?
Sonny: That all really resonates. And I’m actually remembering, I believe the first time we ever met was at a jam session of sorts in DC that you were running. I don’t think we’d ever even spoken before, so our first communication was with instruments in an improvisational context. At least, that’s how I remember it — I was certainly improvising, because I didn’t know any of the music. [Laughs.] I think y’all were also playing a lot of Arabic anthems that everyone was singing along with, really beautiful stuff. But then I think when I came up, it was fully open, and we just had a musical conversation for 10, 15 minutes. Do you remember this?
Huda: Of course.
Sonny: I think it was 2018, or 2017.
Huda: Something like that, yeah. And then we met again in New York, also in a jam session in the backyard. That was quite magical, I remember.
Sonny: And that was the first time the three of us — you, me, and db — played together.
Huda: Right.
Sonny: A lot of what you’re saying about improvisation really resonates with me. The music that I write and that I make most of the time is actually not that much based on improvisation. My albums are very composed, a lot of tight arrangements, which I also love. But there’s something about improvisation that feels like you have to tap into something else. You have to be present on a whole other level. And it’s, like, 99% listening at its best, and having that real time conversation. I mean, I prefer to improvise not just by myself — when it’s in communication with another musician, the conversation that unfolds and the presence that’s required I think is something really unique. And even more so than an improvised solo section of a composed song where there’s a particular structure or particular chord changes. But what we did on our recording, and what we’ve done in these couple of settings that we just described, there was no roadmap, there was no plan, and you just see what unfolds.
I came into it much later as a musician than you did. I first learned to play music first in Sikh devotional spaces where I was learning really simple melodies and singing these sort of beautiful devotional poems as a child. And then in school band, which was when I started playing trumpet, and that was a very basic Western classical kind of foundation, where I didn’t know what improvisation was. I didn’t know that was something that I could even do. I wasn’t exposed to jazz very young, either. So I didn’t really start improvising until I was in my late teen years, early 20s. And it actually came about more through getting into ska and reggae music. I started a ska band in college, and started with solo sections in songs where there’d be a trumpet solo or something that would be largely improvised. And then over the years, a few decades later, it feels like a pretty important part of the way that I want to express myself as a trumpet player, primarily. I think that’s the main thing that I feel good about improvising on. I can’t really do it with other instruments. I feel like to improvise effectively, you have to really be very comfortable with your instrument, because you have to be prepared for anything. And trumpet, I think, is the instrument that feels the most right in that realm.
I never really learned jazz. That’s not my vocabulary, that’s not really how I play. Which I think makes me different than a lot of working trumpet players in the United States. But improvisation is a very big part of what I love to do, and I think the way that I improvise as a trumpet player is going to sound pretty different than someone who went to music school in the US, or someone who came up playing jazz. Which also means I avoid the more capital-J Jazz jam sessions, because I don’t know those songs, I don’t know how to play over those changes. But the kind of improvising that we do together is very much my cup of tea, in terms of the more modal and sort of organic approach.
Huda: That’s beautiful. Are there any improvisational aspects in Sikh music?
Sonny: For sure. In its original form, it was very much coming out of Hindustani classical music — so the sort of North Indian classical music. Which is all raag-based, which are basically musical modes. And within those raags, there’s so much improvisation that happens. So when you hear Sikh devotional musicians — or ragis, we call them, or rababis, musicians that play this instrument called the rubab that goes back a few thousand years, that’s been central in Sikh devotional music since the beginning — all of those musicians will be singing the poetry within the form of the raag, and then there’ll be an alaap at the beginning, which is basically an improvised introduction of the mode of the raag. And then within the songs — for lack of a better word — there’ll be improvised sections before you go back to the words. So it’s definitely part of that tradition of South Asian classical music, which is a very improvisational form of music. I don’t know that vocabulary very well either. I never studied Indian classical music, I wasn’t trained in that way. But I work with some people who do and it’s super beautiful, and even to dabble on it as a little bit of an outsider is very fun. I just kind of learn the parameters of which notes to avoid in a particular raag and try to listen and mimic what my collaborators are doing to some extent.
It’s a tradition that has been lost in many ways, in the Sikh devotional space, largely because the rababi players generally were Muslim in these Sikh devotional spaces, starting back in the 16th century, and they were basically kicked out. As nationalism grew under the British occupation and colonization of India, a lot of communities started becoming more dogmatic and more rigid, and so Muslims began to get pushed out of these spaces. And with them left a lot of that knowledge and expertise, and even the ability to play these instruments like the rabab and the dilruba. Most of those musicians ended up in Pakistan after Partition, which is a very sad thing. And actually, the collaborator who I’m working with a lot now, who very much is inspired by this tradition — he also has a track on our album — is Qais Essar. He’s an Afghan rabab player who’s just incredible. And so what we’re trying to do together is pay homage to this tradition and sort of model, what does solidarity look like today?
Huda: Yeah, I’m a huge fan.
Sonny: I feel like rabab and oud — historically, I don’t know the connection, and how much of a connection there is, but I feel like there’s a similarity. When you played at my album release show last fall, I feel like that whole room was just transported. It’s a portal. And I feel like rabab has that similar quality when it’s played by the right person. It’s a portal to someplace else, in the best way.
Huda: I had an improvisation experience with a rabab player and a Mongolian throat singer and horse fiddle player. That was absolutely beautiful to see these three instruments come together. So, yeah, I’m a huge fan of the instrument generally.
Sonny: Yes, and I am of the oud as well, especially when you were playing it.
Huda: Oh, thank you.
Sonny: Was oud your first instrument?
Huda: It was. Or, well, I guess I played guitar before the oud, and when I was a kid I played piano, but they both didn’t last very long. Once I had discovered the oud — it was at a family gathering, and I saw the social aspect of what the instrument is capable of doing to bring people together. The actual instrument has been around for a long time for me, but it wasn’t until I saw my grandfather play that I really connected with it, and that was that. That same summer, I went back to Tunis and I started learning it.
Sonny: How old were you?
Huda: I think I was 12, 13. Many years back. Let me ask you a question: this is your second volume with the BDS mixtapes?
Sonny: Yeah.
Huda: I’m curious how you got involved. Why did you feel like this is something that you wanted to do? It’s a bit of a risk these days to be part of such a movement.
Sonny: Yeah. I mean, Palestine and the plight and struggle of the Palestinian people has been an issue that I’ve cared about for a long time, probably since around 9/11. I think I got activated around it around the same time that I was getting really involved in the anti-war movement regarding the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War, and just deepening my political understanding of what’s going on in the world and how US imperialism works. And, of course, Palestine comes up very quickly. I was always very enraged about how much of a taboo subject it was even on the left at that point. And I think in some sectors of the left, that’s still the case. But I think that’s one of the few things that has shifted over these last few years in terms of how big the solidarity movement has grown in this country and around the world. So it’s an issue I’ve been plugged into and showing up for in solidarity in whatever ways that I can over the years.
The organization formerly known as Adalah New York is one that I’ve also been peripherally involved with over the years, and am friends with a lot of the organizers. Over the years, the cultural boycott of Israel and organizing artists and musicians to ensure that our art is not complicit in the Zionist occupation and apartheid regime felt like a very obvious way that I could plug in as a musician. I have a past as an organizer and an advocate as well; I’m also an educator. But over the years, music has become more and more the focus of where a lot of my time goes. And so making that intervention in solidarity with Palestine through art and music felt really important. So when Amplify Palestine started coming together, these ideas of making compilation albums of artists willing to publicly support Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions felt very urgent and very important. When we released the last compilation a few years ago, we didn’t get any huge names, but we got a lot of friends, we got a lot of amazing musicians, and many who had never necessarily publicly supported BDS before and come out in that very bold and necessary way. So it felt very powerful.
Beginning with the improvisation that the three of us did, it’s been really exciting to dream up a third volume of all original music and bringing in a whole new pool of musicians willing to also take this stand in this time. And for all the reasons we already discussed in terms of improvisation and why it’s so important — all improvisers in particular doing this, I think, is super cool. There’s such a long history of musicians and improvisers using their sometimes lyric-less music to stand up to fascism, to stand up against various forms of injustice and oppression. And Palestine is one of those litmus tests for our times of, really, which side are you on? Are you on the side of fascists and demagogues, or are you on the side of the people? Are you on the side of the marginalized and oppressed?
I am fortunate enough to not work for an institution where I have to be scared of being fired or what the board is going to say. Of course, any of us can lose work, can lose gigs, because of what we’re doing. But I think the more of us willing to take that risk, the less risky it will be. And so I think modeling by doing, by walking the walk as much as we can as non-Palestinian musicians — speaking for myself — who really care and really want to see change happen in our lifetimes, it’s not even a question to me. I’m fortunate to be a US-born citizen, so under this particular regime of repression, I feel less concerned about the implications there. But that’s not the case for everyone who’s still managing to contribute their voices, but have to do so in anonymous ways for reasons that make so much sense.
How about you, Huda? As a Palestinian musician from Gaza, why are you doing this now?
Huda: Well, I’m not just from Gaza — my father is from Gaza, I lived in Gaza, but my mom is also from Akkah [Acre]. I also lived in the West Bank, and most of my life has been in the diaspora. I feel that this is an important distinction at this point to make, in terms of the diversity of the Palestinian experience.
For me, I think the call came in at a time where we were seeing sort of a resurge of the Palestinian issue, in ways that… I had given up, not hope, but… there was no movement on the ground that was reflecting the difficulty of the reality. And it came at a time where I felt like the political representation of the Palestinians was really suffering. And then the Sheikh Jarrah events happened and we saw an ignition in how Palestinians felt about the situation. I saw Palestinians come together from all places in Palestine; from the 1948 territories, from the West Bank, and from Gaza. Everyone felt united, and I started hearing again this chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” And for me, the momentum was so important. I do believe in non-violent ways of fighting fascism, and BDS definitely is one of the strongest tools we have right now.
Sonny: Yes.
Huda: Also, this was happening at a time where a lot about Palestine was being suppressed all around the world, and especially in the US. For many years, I felt like we were very few people shouting in the abyss, in a way. And then 2021 happened and something shifted again for me, and I felt more empowered by this union that I saw on the ground. It was a moment of hope that there is a continuum to this desire for freedom and the capacity to fight against this brutal occupation. And so when Shalva approached me with the idea, there was no thinking for me. It was obviously the right thing to do.
I really believe in the power of bringing people together, genuinely, and to be able to bring people together in such a beautiful way to portray an important message… No one could see this moment at the time, and I don’t think we could have predicted how timely this release would be. I think we were still struggling with how to engage people and how to bring attention to this issue at the time. We were thinking about different strategies and ways to frame the BDS call. And sometimes, there are divine timings, and I think as hard as this moment is, I still choose to believe that this is the beginning of a huge shift in the world, for the coming generations. Perhaps it’s the only solace we have as Palestinians and as Arabs. But I really think that the way the world has been shaken, the amount of injustice that has been uncovered and the biases that have been uncovered over the last year are very difficult to ignore, and I don’t think that there is a way to move beyond this but to restructure, our social contract as humans.
Sonny: Yes. Absolutely. I have one more thought-slash-question: What’s the Arabic word for “steadfast”?
Huda: Sumud.
Sonny: To me, what you just said embodies that concept in practice. You may have heard me talk about this before — in the Sikh community, we have a concept that’s very similar and something that we’re sort of expected to embody in our bones in the way we walk, and we call it charhdi kala. It’s sometimes oversimplified to mean “optimistic or “happy” or “joyful,” and those can be parts of it, but I see it as something that’s much more connected to steadfastness, to sumud. It’s like, what is the bigger picture in our hearts and souls that allows us to wake up tomorrow and continue fighting for justice and liberation? For the Palestinian people, for the Sudanese people, for the Congolese people, for the Kashmiri people, for oppressed and occupied people all over the world? For me, there is a spiritual dimension to it, but I don’t think there has to be for everybody. But speaking for myself, that’s a belief like what you said about, we’re on the dawn of a new way of how humans interact with each other — I’m badly paraphrasing you — that, to me, is what charhdi kala is about. Because if we don’t have that broader vision and hope that things will be different, we’re going to sink into despair. And if we sink into despair, our Palestine solidarity work is going to be useless. Our solidarity work with immigrants who are being detained and deported right now in the US is going to be useless. Our work in solidarity with queer and trans people is going to be useless if we are immobilized by despair.
And so that’s a connection that I feel between our communities. My community is one that has also been through genocidal times — not on this scale, but as recent as the 1980s. The Indian government basically tried to erase us. Basically, “Sikh equals terrorist,” and Sikh leaders are still being targeted for assassinations around the world for daring to call out the injustices of the Indian government. And so I feel a lot of kindred spiritedness with the Palestinian people in our collective desire for self-determination and sovereignty in these fascistic times.
Huda: Yeah. And I really hope that this would be a moment for us to rethink our supremacy, not just within the human structure, but as humans on this planet. I keep saying, we think of ourselves as supreme, but we’re not. We’re just part of this planet. We’re not on top of the pyramid like they’ve told us that we are. So until this happens, and we start seeing ourselves as part of the organisms and part of this world — not on top of it — we will keep aggravating the cycle. So my hope is that we can really start rethinking our being here on earth.
Sonny: Yes. We don’t say amen in my community, but I still want to say amen.
Huda: [Laughs.] Amen.
Sonny: Thank you, Huda.
Huda: Thank you.
(Photo Credit: left, Ernest Stuart; right, Dina Shoukri)