The soundtrack for Riz Ahmed’s new show Bait is a celebration of all things desi. On it are a handful of Pakistani artists — Arooj Aftab, Natasha Noorani and the Young Stunners.
Ahmed shared the list of songs to his Instagram along with a caption that spoke to his passion for the project.
“Our dream for the Bait soundtrack was making something never done before. To smash together different genres and cultural influences, just like the show did. We reached out to our favourite artists from UK MC’s, to West coast US Bhangra acts to Pakistani and Indian rappers,” read the caption of the post.
“From legendary innovators like Jay Sean, to those crossing musical borders today Talwiinder, Young Stunners, Raf Sappera, and Kr$na. From London heroes CASISDEAD, Shabba D, & AJ Tracey, to global soul divas like Arooj Aftab, Natasha Noorani, and Jorja Smith, to the crazy new wave sound of Twins, UPPAL, Manni Dee, Nayana IZ, Billy Khan, and Anish Kumar,” he said.
“Nothing communicates a culture more than its music, so this is us, right now: from UK grime and garage, Bhangra, cinematic soul, house, drum’n’bass, to 80s synth. This is our way of thanking you for the support you gave the show, and this our love letter to where we are from: Birmingham, Bay Area, and Bombay. There’s no place like home… So we have to build it.”
Ahmed ended his note with a shout out to all the artists involved and who “made this so special”.
Some of those artists were Talwinder, Ahmed himself who hops on the track ‘We Good?’ With Casisdead and Manni Dee and again on ‘Saya’ with Noorani and Abdullah Siddiqui, Jay Sean, Abdullah Maharvi, Billy Khan and ADP who collaborated for ‘Nach Le’, Aftab whose soulful Urdu rendition of ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’ with Anish Kumar made our hearts happy and the Young Stunners and Jokhay who performed ‘Shikaar’.
Bait tells the story of Shahjehan, a down-on-his-luck actor hoping to star as the next James Bond, while navigating life in migration, identity and culture changes.
