44 — AUGUST 2019INTERVIEW: NIDHI GUPTA. IMAGE: SIMRAH FARRUKHo
n the first day of 2018, pop musician
Hayley Kiyoko put forth a tweet: “It’s
our year, it’s our time. To thrive and
let our souls feel alive. #20GAYTEEN
#EXPECTATIONS.” While the
Disney star-turned-singer’s March 2018 release,
Expectations, peaked at No 12 on the BillboardACROSS THE
SPECTRUM
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard that
pop music’s gone queer. And Leo Kalyan, the British
singer-songwriter of South Asian origin, is here for itMUSICcharts, it was that hashtag that got her
anointed “lesbian Jesus”, and became a
global mission statement.
There’s a lot you can blame on the
internet, but 2018’s queer pop revolution is
among a handful of those things that can
actually be called wonderful. Suddenly,
a lot of people were talking and making
art about their identities, pushing for
more openness, greater inclusivity and
acceptance, wearing their pronouns and
pride flags on their sleeves. Films like The
Miseducation Of Cameron Post and Boy
Erased carried forth the torch lit by Call
Me By Your Name; the world writhed with
Troye Sivan’s Bloom; and applauded when
Kehlani, Janelle Monae and Sam Smith
came out as queer, pansexual and non-
binary, respectively.
Among this galaxy of rising stars is
musician Leo Kalyan, who has been talking
and singing and making art about his
intersectional life (he’s gay and Muslim)
for over six years now. What began as
“imitations” of Lata Mangeshkar and
Asha Bhonsle songs (like the melifluous
“Yeh Kya Jagah Hai Doston” from Umrao
Jaan) when his voice hadn’t yet broken
has grown into a medium for Kalyan’s rare
blend of art and activism.
He’s put out three EPs – Silver
Linings, Outside In and The Edge (his
most accomplished work) – leveraging
that versatile voice, ear for melody
and exceptional knack for poetry (no
forced rhymes) to produce some unique
“cinematic dream pop”. Once in a while,
his training in Hindustani classical music
will sneak in, like the inflexions on his
latest single “The Road”. More often than
not, he’ll appear in videos sporting kiss
curls and gold temple jewellery. “I can’t
help but be ‘dual’,” Kalyan tells GQ ahead
of the release of his next EP. “And that will
always be a central part of my identity,
and therefore my music.”You quote Rumi in your social media bios –
where does this love of poetry stem from?
My grandfather, Syed Azhar Lakhnavi,
was a published Urdu poet from Lucknow.
After moving to London post-Partition,
he continued to write poetry and was
part of the mushaira circuit in the UK.
I was exposed to it from an early age,
which probably explains why my music
is so lyric-focused. Growing up, framed
calligraphies of his couplets decorated the
walls of my grandparents’ house in South
London, and their bookshelves were filled
with volumes by Indian poets like Bulleh
Shah, Tagore and Gulzar.VIBE