Riz Ahmed’s love for Sufi poetry and Qawwali is mirrored in ‘The Long Goodbye’

British actor Riz Ahmed spoke about channeling his Pakistani roots for his second studio album, The Long Goodbye.

In an interview with Clash, the celebrated rapper, 38, spoke about the element of British-Pakistani diasporic experience being hinted through his music by integration of Qawwali.

“I’ve always been inspired by Sufi poetry and Qawwali, which is essentially a love song: it’s about a lover, it’s about heartbreak, it’s about God. I wanted to incorporate and mirror those feelings, as if we’re going through a very long, painful break-up with our country,” he shared.

“If it feels like a straightforward process it’s because of years moulding a sound. It’s not just about taking rap and taking South Asian pop music: it’s about going beyond that to devotional traditions, to folk music, exploring the percussion and different time signatures in that: melding that with drum and bass, making something that is hard to pinpoint,” he said.

“Take the track ‘Fast Lava’, what is it? It’s merging hardcore, jungle and footwork with Baloch drumming. There’s layers there and that has taken time to refine,” he added.