Coke Studio season 15 is all the rage right now. The first track, “Aayi Aayi”, has already racked up millions of views and heaps of praise for its portrayal of Sindhi culture. The second track, smartly titled ‘2 a.m’ dropped at……you guessed it, 2 a.m on Sunday leaving Pakistanis melancholic.
The Punjabi song features two up and coming artists, Star Shah and Zeeshan Ali. It has become a tradition of Coke Studio, particularly since Zulfi took reins as a producer and showrunner, to give platform to fresh voices that have cropped up from all corners of the country.
Star Shah is a Punjabi poet and songwriter from Okara. Zeeshan Ali is a classical singer who has steadily gained a following for his ghazal renditions on social media. Both men have a face off in ‘2 a.m’, a song that perfectly highlights their vocal strengths and personas.
Perhaps most of us have fallen asleep thinking how doomed the world is, questioning our purpose in this wretched place. Well, Coke Studio has taken our late night reveries and turned them into a soulful ballad. Star Shah’s opening verse is a cynical account of how heartless humanity has become. He is walking down a dark, empty street, lamenting the end of love as people sleep in their houses.
The production design is fabulous. The darkness of the street is contrasted so well with light coming from windows that the whole imagery feels like a painting. “2 a.m” puts you in an eerie place as Star Shah walks and complains in his edgy, nasal voice to the ears that won’t listen.
But then comes Zeeshan Ali, and injects the song with some lightness in his soothing verse. Ali has a brilliant voice, sad and hopeful at once. He answers Shah’s angry hymn with a positivity that only he can manage. He talks about how love is all we have. From the old times to the new, the nature of love might have changed, but it exists. The camera cuts to the lit windows again and we see an old woman cuddling her cat, a mother ironing school uniform for her child, and other similar routines in every household.
How can humanity exist without love, is a question the song poses and tries to answer. How successfully it does that is up for debate, but one thing is for sure, Coke Studio Pakistan has taken great pains to bring us a lyrical and visual treat. Millions of people all over the world wait every week for the next song to drop, knowing that Coke Studio Pakistan never disappoints. It is undoubtedly a cultural asset we can be proud of.
