Shaani Cage Brings the Immigrant Experience to R&B

All Photos By Author

Meet Kaleem and Aleem Khan. Two brothers who have been making future-soul music as Shaani Cage for over a year now and are finally starting to see some progress. This year, they’ll be performing at Sled Island for the second time in two years—this time on the main stage with the likes of King Tuff, Viet Cong, and alt-rock veterans, Television. To be frank, R&B acts in Calgary are few and far between, with Beach Season being the only other group in Calgary to represent the genre. Because of this and the duo's unique take on the genre, much of Shaani Cage’s attention is well deserved. On their recent release Danyaal EP—named after their nephew— Aleem's production seamlessly blends samples influenced from the siblings' Pakistani heritage with Kaleem's soulful crooning baritone. And, unlike Beach Season’s smooth, sensual sound that they call “booty-wave”, Shaani Cage wants to usher a message; a social, cultural statement.

Born in Pakistan, Kaleem draws much of his lyricism from his family’s experience of migrating to the US. He recalls growing up in Chicago, Illinois, where Aleem was born, before eventually moving to Mississippi. “Much of my childhood memory comes from [there],” Kaleem explains, “Living in a small town filled with poverty and moving to a thriving city like Calgary really puts things into perspective.” For him, it would have been a lot harder to grow up without having the solace of being part of the Pakistani community. He says there were a lot of “interracial prejudices” amongst the people belonging to different silos of the town that he resided at the time.

Much of their experience is illustrated within the narrative of the EP. Kaleem uses the juxtaposition between the ideal perspective of living the American dream as an immigrant in the opening track “Arrival” with that of the poverty so explicitly stated in the eponymous track “Mississippi.” Reminiscent of Gil Scott-Heron, producer Aleem uses samples of statements that their father had made of their time living there: “In Mississippi, I was talking to one of my professors/He said ‘this is the Bangladesh of America/… This is not the north, this is the south." Kaleem also recalls coming to that same conclusion. “I was a kid at the time. A lot of the kids from public school were black or of different minorities. Seeing the difference between the kids that went to a private school and the great divide between everyone was eye-opening at the time.”

Both brothers identify as Muslim, which Aleem says poses a stigma wherever they go, especially due to “all the crazy shit that’s happening." “The problem of a predominantly white population staring at you all the time because you dress a certain way and your skin’s different is always going to exist,” he says. As immigrants, experiencing racism and having to reconcile between the two cultures that they’ve grown up in, both brothers feel like they’re humanizing themselves and their culture through music. "We're human beings and the music shows that" says Aleem, “I get mad at things; I can love; I can think about kissing the girl I want. I love apple pie.” Although Shaani Cage belongs to the R&B staple, both brothers carry a wide array of influences with Kaleem being heavily influenced by songwriters such as Elliott Smith and Marvin Gaye, to name a few. Production-wise, Aleem says he’s recently taken to 70’s down-tempo and the colourful instrumentation of Serge Gainsbourg. “But, in terms of what got me into producing if it had to be one album it would be Mos Def’s Black On Both Sides,” says Aleem. “‘Miss Fat Booty’ is an amazing song. It got me into the super raw form of 90s sampling.”

And with all the attention Shaani Cage has received because of their fresh perspectives on sound and ideas, the brothers are excited about their future. “A lot of artists work ten times harder than we are doing right now and they still don’t achieve what we’ve been given the opportunity to achieve in a super short amount of time, especially in a place like Calgary,” says Kaleem. “But I guess we’re doing what we like and the city’s noticing it.”

Nikki Celis is a journalist based in Calgary. Follow him on twitter - @celisnikki

*Catch Shaani Cage perform on Saturday, June 27 at Sled Island’s mainstage, Olympic Plaza. Aleem Khan will also be debuting his solo dream-wave, lo-fi pop effort on Saturday, June 27 at the Broken City patio