Mogambo, who's the super villain of this classic Bollywood film called Mr. India from 1987,
and he's got this catchphrase that everyone knows really and it's “Mogambo khush hua”
which means Mogambo is pleased, but he's not pleased because he's found some dessert leftover
in the fridge, he's pleased for fucked up reasons, usually because someone's just jumped
into a bath of acid to show their loyalty to him or whatever.
As a brown guy, you turn on the news and the only narrative about you is that you're unwanted,
you're a piece of shit, you're a terrorist, you're a troublemaker, whatever.
So I wanted to make an anthem.
I wanted to make something that's defiant, as something for my people, but for me.
And when I say my people I don't just mean people who look like me, I mean anyone who
feels like they're being undervalued or unwanted right now.
If anyone makes you feel unwanted, fuck them,
I'm out here doing pieces of work that are seen by lots of different people, but that
doesn't mean I'm trying to package it and keep it sweet.
Yeah, we are a little bit bitter, so I put the lemon in.
I think a lot of us grow up with self-hate, a lot of us that don't conform to the cookie
cutter, Ken and Barbie kind of mold that we grew up watching.
It's about flipping that on its head and saying you know what, so many of us kids of color
grew up secretly wanting to be white, well I'm here to try and tip the scales until that
flows both ways.
An aspiration can be a different color to just white.
I think it's 2042, is when white people will be a minority in America.
And of course the reaction to that, is people are frowning and panicking, and that's why
they voted for Brexit, that's why they voted for Trump.
If you turn on the TV, nine times out of ten when you see a brown guy on it, it's either
they're being bombed, or they've bombed someone.
So, when people say you know what this is a cultural war going on and you've got to
pick a side, well it's like well what side do you want me to pick, either side I pick.
I'm either killing people, or I'm being killed.
So, in either of those outcomes we just end up as the kebab meat.
We're the dead meat, to feed peoples appetite in this war that's going on.
We're in a time when everyone's trying to be woke, and that's cool, that's really welcome,
but sometimes you get so woke you're just beefing with your own.
Your style of combat is meaningless because there's a real war going on and you're just
coming out with Tweets, you know self righteous tweets.
There's a lot of headlines saying about immigrants are basically cockroaches and insects.
The Prime Minister, David Cameron, at one point, said that there's swarms of migrants
coming into Britain; describing us like insects.
You might call us cockroaches, but really when all is said and done, cockroaches will
outlive humans.
This track is for you to feel on a spiritual level, to feel empowered on a spiritual level,
but also for you to be able to dance to.
Que sera sera is that French song, whatever will be, will be.
That's basically another way to talk about kismet, which is fate.
Then you end that line with Mo Salah, who for a lot of people, he's like the answer
to all our prayers.
He's the destiny, he's the fate, that we've all been hoping for.
He's like this Muslim superstar footballer.
Those bars are about trying to keep a stoic attitude.
On the one hand we don't get to celebrate Christmas, on the other hand we get Mo Salah
It's kind of weird that countries like France or wherever talking about banning the niqab,
a Muslim veil for women, but at the same time there's all this pressure and brainwashing
about being highly sexualized.
Bradford is a city in the north of England, which is very, very Pakistani.
The Neuf Trois is a famous suburb in Paris, which is heavily North African, and it's this
idea of Pakistanis or North Africans, these children of empire, we really built this society.
Don't tell us that we aren't wanted, get the fuck out of my yard.
A couple of times I'd get stopped and have my suitcase opened, and they search me, and
they pull me to one side and the people searching me were my fans, were quoting my bars back
at me, just kind of surreal.
I describe a lot of what I'm doing as a mongrel manifesto.
A manifesto for people who are hybrids.
What I'm trying to do is take words like Muslim, or brown, or British, and just stretch them
so they're big enough that I can live inside them comfortably.