A silky, smooth voice fills the room. Her voice is like amber: beautiful, dreamy, warm and glowing. Her lyrics drip heavy with passion, and the words hit me in the gut with their realism and raw emotion.
Meet Krithi Rao: a young jazz singer who infuses electronic, ambient, and trip-hop elements into her music. Rao’s unique charm and effortless command of her voice makes listening to her engaging and mesmerizing. Her music is almost a salute and a nod to her influences of Fiona Apple, Carmen McRae, The Velvet Underground, SBTRKT, and James Blake, to name a few.
Rao, 28, is an up-and-coming artist who, apart from her full-time job, fills her days with voice lessons, recording, writing, practicing, and creating music. She has performed at a range of venues across the United States and hopes to make a bigger impact on the music scene in the upcoming months and years.
Hailing from Brooklyn, but having been born and raised in Chennai, India, Rao was originally trained in Carnatic music.
“I started Carnatic vocal lessons when I was 5 years old,” she said. “I owe a great deal of my technique to the lessons I took back in India.”
Though her formal lessons started at age five, Rao has been singing since she was much younger.
“One of my earliest memories is of me singing nursery rhymes and Indian songs with my mom,” she said.
Rao’s mother, Lakshmi Rao, has had a big influence on her daughter’s musical development, as she is a professional singer herself.
“My mom is an amazing singer,” Rao said. “She’s always encouraged me to pursue a career as a singer. If I didn’t have her support, I think I would have completely brushed it aside.”
But Rao found that she could not fully immerse herself in the Carnatic music that she was learning because, “…it was religious and in a language that I didn’t understand.” So, she soon turned her attention to western music because English is her first language.
“When I moved to the States, I joined a jazz choir during my senior year of high school and then continued my training in jazz vocals at Hampshire College,” she said.
She found that her Indian Carnatic background came in handy.
“My Carnatic music training definitely helped me pick up jazz vocals pretty quickly,” she said. “A lot of famous jazz artists have cited Indian classical music as an inspiration, and I definitely share that same view.”
Rao started to feel like she could connect to her newfound genre of jazz and could easily relate to the lyrics.
But, unfortunately, not everyone took too kindly to a brown girl singing western jazz.
“A talent scout in the industry once told me I should monetize on being Indian,” she said. “I felt as if he reduced me to how I presented myself, as a brown Indian woman. However, I have come to embrace a balance of both Indian and Western elements in some of my newer tracks.”
Though, singing is not something Rao does for money or glory, she said:
“Singing is what I turn to when I feel the extremes of any emotion,” she said. “I sing when I’m extremely happy, I sing when I’m absolutely depressed, and I sing when I’m really furious. It’s the only release I know that I have.”
With the hopes of taking her music to the next level, Rao recently joined a musical collective, the Recording Artists Development, and hopes to continually produce music while collaborating with other artists.
“I’m so happy that I found this group of wonderful musicians and songwriters,” Rao elaborated. “We meet every session and give each other feedback on our tracks. Luanne Surace [board member] and Keiter Braun [session coordinator] go beyond their means to find industry executives to give us feedback on our tracks and the producer, Phil Carroll [producer and founder] is absolutely amazing throughout the process.”
Rao said her drive comes from not only a passion for music but also from a place of social justice.
“In the future, I also see myself working with a non-profit that helps children and musicians from underprivileged communities realize their true potential and musical talents,” she said.
Her advice for other young women who want to pursue music, as a hobby or career is to:
“Just do it, especially if it makes you happy, because you’ll only regret it when you’re older. Just keep working on your music, even if it only gets you about 50 followers on Soundcloud, and even if you only make about $10 a month on sales. I know it’s difficult but it’s important to focus on how the process itself gives you satisfaction.”
“For me, singing is a channel of expressing myself and having my friends and family listen to my music,” she added.
She went on to explain how the journey is as important as the destination:
“I’m happy when I work on instrumentation ideas, I’m excited when I come up an awesome lyric in the shower, and I love it when my producer and I come up with weird vocal improvisations for a track. Those are the moments that make me feel accomplished as a singer/songwriter.”
To follow Krithi Rao’s musical journey, follow her on Soundcloud and Facebook.
November 17, 2023November 17, 2023 5min readBy Hannah Kurien
Photo Source: Instagram
The onscreen representation of South Asians has never been great in Hollywood. In fact, I learned not to look for it in my favorite rom-coms, superhero series, and family dramas. In my TV-watching experience, though, comedy has been a different story. I love sitcoms and have watched nearly every popular sitcom from the early and late aughts. When I turned to these comfort shows, I never felt unrepresented. Some of the most iconic sitcom characters in recent decades are South Asian: Kelly Kapoor in “The Office,” Tom Haverford from “Parks and Recreation,” Cece Parekh in “New Girl,” Tahani Al-Jamil in “The Good Place,” and in the past year, Sid from “How I Met Your Father.” For most brown viewers, like me, this felt more than satisfactory. Any representation felt like good representation, and as an audience, we weren’t in a position to critique networks, producers, or writers on how we appeared on screen. It was, and still is, a celebration to appear at all.
The portrayal of South Asians in sitcoms is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it opened doors for South Asians that were unavailable through other creative endeavors. Comedy as a genre is weird, and smart, but relatable. It has given our community a far-reaching platform to unite and connect with people of all cultures. As a minority group, exposure — especially in an industry held together by connections and clout — is integral for our collective success. South Asians have seen more success with comedy than any other genre because making people laugh is the most palatable way to present our similarities and differences. We can tailor our political statements, social frustrations, and marginalized experiences into fun, raunchy, non-threatening, and insightful content. Comedy is versatile enough to capture our most unique and marketable traits, and sitcoms, situational comedy, is an extension of this in the form of 24-minute episodes.
While a handful of sitcoms employed South Asian talent, our inclusion has rarely been well-intentioned. As of its last season in 2019, “The Big Bang Theory” has won 10 Emmys and made history as the longest-running, live-action sitcom. It is unclear whether these accomplishments occurred despite the poor representation of South Asians or for those very reasons. Raj Koothrappali, played by Kunal Nayyar, is the only person of color among the show’s eight cast members. Raj’s character was built around various stereotypes, extending beyond the standard nerd archetype. Raj was coded as the most socially inept, emasculated, and undesirable character in a group of awkward, geeky men. He is often put down, humiliated, and misunderstood. This type of representation, especially in a sitcom that ended just four years ago, is regressive and tiring. Characters like Raj really aren’t representations at all. He isn’t meant to be. Raj was characterized for the enjoyment of non-South Asian viewers. His “fresh-off-the-boat” attempts at assimilation are the jokes. His cultural traditions coupled with his Western ambitions are supposed to make Western audiences laugh. When Raj is the butt of a joke, the “ultimate loser” in a group of three other losers, nobody is laughing with him. They are laughing at him.
“Aliens in America,” another 2007s sitcom, lasted just one season on The CW for good reason. This sitcom featured a white American family in Wisconsin that decided to host an international student to help their son make friends in his high school. The family is dismayed when Raja, the exchange student, isn’t from a European country but from Pakistan. Here begins 18 episodes of overt racism, xenophobia, and religious and cultural intolerance posed for laughs. It’s a frustrating watch, and unfortunately, its gross premise can be explained by the lack of South Asian writers and directors credited. Representation on screen is only tasteful and compelling when there are South Asians behind the scenes sharing input, expertise, and experiences. Mindy Kaling’s work is evidence of what it can look like when South Asians have the resources and support to shape their own narratives. While her South Asian characters may fall under a similar archetype, their stories are expansive and authentic.
Sitcoms have both enforced and subverted South Asian stereotypes. Much of the work South Asian creatives have done to separate our identities from racist characterizations was simultaneously perpetuated by the entertainment industry. On the same screen as Raj and Raja, we watched Aziz Ansari as Tom Haverford and Jameela Jamil as Tahani Al-Jamil. These two characters diverged from the former in that their culture and “brownness” were seldom mentioned. They seemed to exist almost separately from their ethnicity and carried visible confidence and self-assurance, pulling laughs with their eccentrics and quirkiness.
Hannah Simone’s Cece Parekh and Sid, played by Suraj Sharma in the “How I Met Your Mother” spin-off, “How I Met Your Father,” are both refreshingly original. Sid is a South Asian bartender from New York, and his ethnicity is neither ignored nor a point of mockery. Cece is a high school dropout turned professional model, continually recognized throughout the show for her confidence, savviness, and beauty. Their personalities not only subvert the nerdy, meek, and undesirable traits typically associated with brown characters but also inspire much of the witty and sharp dialogue among their respective ensemble casts. A government official from a modest Midwest town, a model in Los Angeles, a British philanthropist, and a New York bartender will never fully capture our individual experiences. Yet, their stories represent small yet significant aspects of our lives. These characters, born between 2007 and 2021, are indicative of the evolution of South Asian characters from prior caricatures. Our inherent identities, communities, and fundamental beliefs are not and should no longer be the joke.
Comedy, specifically sitcoms, has been a gateway for South Asians to enter the entertainment industry. While representation has been lacking in other genres of television, sitcoms continue to be home to notable South Asian talent. Brown characters in the past were depicted with varying degrees of accuracy and integrity, but our prolonged presence on network television has slowly led to main billing on genres outside of a comedic scope. Netflix productions and Marvel films are among the big-budget projects entertaining the idea that South Asians can be superheroes, love interests, and so much more. While Hollywood’s motivations to feature South Asian characters may have initially derived from a place of ridicule, South Asian creatives made comic relief characters their own. Sitcoms have matured into a genre where we can take ownership of our stories, evoking the raw, hilarious, and painful moments that make us the fully-fleshed people we are on and off the screen.
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April 10, 2023April 11, 2023 3min readBy Aysha Qamar
This story was published as a collaboration between Brown Girl Magazine and Reckon, a national news organization that covers the people powering change, the challenges shaping our time, and what it means for all of us.
This is a special year for Ramadan. For the first time in three years my mosque will fill to capacity, giving my community a chance to rebuild lost connections and overcome heartache. It reminds me of a simple truth: healing comes not when you expect it but when you need it.
For Muslims, Ramadan symbolizes the time of the year in which Islam’s prophet Muhammad first received the revelation of the Quran. Since Islam follows a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the moon, the start of the holy month of Ramadan is determined when a crescent moon is sighted in Saudi Arabia.
The Quran is said to have been received throughout the life of the prophet Muhammad, and Ramadan marks the days it took for him to receive its first verses. When Muhammad received this revelation, it is said that he isolated himself in a cave to reflect and devoted himself to endless worship. In the same way that Muhammad secluded himself to focus on gratitude and prayer, Muslims around the world use the time to distance themselves from daily distractions and focus on spiritual growth through a month of fasting.
Siyam in community
The Arabic word for fasting is siyam which translates to ‘be at rest.’ Abstaining from eating and drinking allows us to take the rest our body and soul so deeply crave and ground ourselves and one another in a physical, mental and spiritual reset.
When I was a child, Ramadan symbolized the one time it was normal to spend your entire weekend in the Mosque. It was my first experience of a sleepover, with pajamas hidden under my abaya and Pakistani kurtas. Beyond the gender divide of the prayer halls, children would take naps on parents laps as the community prayed throughout the night. The Mosque was a beautiful gathering space open to anyone who needed a meal, whether or not they were fasting.
During the pandemic, Ramadan was different. Endless nights in the Mosque filled with prayer and community were scaled down to Zoom hangouts. Programs that were once filled with intimate in-person conversations on the floor of the Mosque, were now faceless squares on a screen, their names barely visible.
The Jummah or Friday prayers that were once so packed with people that the crowd spilled out onto the surrounding grass and sidewalks were conducted in parked cars. The mosque decorated the parking lot for drive-through visitors for the Eid Namaz, and community members waved from a distance to others with the same time slot.
I still remember when a friend’s mother died of COVID-19. What would have been a Janaza or funeral that surrounded the grieving family with community and prayer, turned into a Zoom call. Watching the tears of my friend’s family during the burial services, unable to visit her home and read the Quran together was heartbreaking.
Even before the pandemic, the world was not always a safe place for me and my community. From my family and I being yelled at to “go back to our country” when we were on vacation, to the looks my mother received when she wore her hijab in public, I understood even as a young child the ways in which Muslims were perceived as outsiders in our own country.
In many ways the pandemic compounded the islamophobia that my community began experiencing at heightened levels after 9/11. During Trump’s time in office, the Muslim community—which in the US mostly consists of people who identify as Asian and Black—faced heightened racism and incidents of violence, in part due to misinformation about the coronavirus. In the racial justice uprisings of 2020, Black Muslims—which make up more than 20% of all Muslims in the US—were not only targeted for their race but their religious background. Mosques across the country were vandalized, and continue to experience increased threats to this day.
Ramadan as a space to heal
These last few years made me realize how badly I craved the sanctuary of my Mosque, and to physically return to a space where I felt safe. I feel relieved and at peace to return back to nights where I am surrounded by familiar faces praying together side by side and breaking our fast without any fear of judgment.
During Ramadan, I find myself closest to my faith and to myself. Just as the Quranic verse says, “so, surely with hardship comes ease”, I am reminded of our resilience and how obstacles can be overcome through spaces of community and prayer.
I believe that the healing we need in the world begins from within. My community needs the sanctuary of Ramadan now more than ever to reflect and rebuild, away from the violence.
Reckon is a national news organization that covers the people powering change, the challenges shaping our time, and what it means for all of us.
July 24, 2023August 21, 2023 3min readBy Dana Mathura
“How could the British bring the Indians without the cows?”That’s one of the jokes you’re very likely to hear at comedian Priya Guyadeen’s show. In fact, the 53-year-old just wrapped up a set of shows with her troupe: Cougar Comedy Collective. The Guyanese-born comic spearheads the group of mostly women of “a certain age,” as she puts it.
She says the group was formed in 2021 but she started dishing out jokes back in 2020 during the pandemic, over Zoom. She was always labeled the “funny one” in her family and decided to take her jokes to a virtual open mic, hosted by her friend, where she says failure was less daunting.
Cut to 2023, and the comic was able to take her show on the road. Guyadeen and her fellow performers recently hit the East coast for a set of shows called “Cougars on the Loose!” The shows even featured two male comics.
Guyadeen’s comedy routines touch on her Indo Guyanese background, highlighting stereotypes and a clash of cultures. In one of her jokes, she tells her audience that her Guyanese mom is bad with names when she introduces her white boyfriend, Randy, and he gets called Ramesh.
Out in the Bay Area — where she spends her days now — she tries to connect the sparsely Caribbean population to her jokes.
That includes talking about the 1978 Jonestown Massacre which had ties to San Francisco and ended in Guyana. She uses this as a reference point — trying to connect her audience to her background with historical context. She says this does come with its challenges, though.
The single mom also practices clean jokes. Once she finishes up her daily routine with her eight-year-old son and day job as a project manager for a biotechnology company, she tries to find time to write her material.
It’s a balancing act. I’m like the day job-Priya for a few hours or for a chunk of time. And then I’ve got to put on my comedian hat and do that for a period of time because with comedy, I’m not just performing. I’m also producing, managing the shows, booking talent, seeking venues.
Though it’s not easy, she says she’s learning through it all — the business side of comedy and discipline.
Guyadeen, who’s lived in Brazil and Canada, says her young son really contributes to her comedy. A lot of her material focuses on jokes for parents, and single parents like herself, because she feels:
[We live] in a society that doesn’t really create a support system for single parents.
Her nonprofit, Cougar Comedy Collective, was born out of all the great reception she received. She noticed a “niche market” of women in their 50s who loved to get dressed up and come out to the shows to hear jokes that related to their own lives that aren’t typically touched on. These were jokes about menopause, aging and being an empty nester. Guyadeen says her nonprofit,
…bring[s] talent together in our age group to celebrate this time of life; celebrate this particular juncture in a person’s life.
As Guyadeen continues her comedic journey, she says she hopes she’ll be a role model for other Caribbean women to follow their dreams despite their age. She also hopes to see more Caribbean people carving out their space in the entertainment industry.
Featured Image of Priya Guyadeen taken by Elisa Cicinelli Photography
Lakhpreet Kaur is editor-in-chief for Kaur Life, a nonprofit online magazine geared to empowering Sikh women. She is also on the executive board of SAFAR: The Sikh Feminist Research Institute.
