From Katy Perry’s Chained to the Rhythm – about, like, how we’re all sheep, yeah? – to Pink’s What About Us?, ie the modern-day Another Day in Paradise, pop’s approach to politics in 2017 has been frustratingly vague. Signed to major labels, there’s often too much at risk for artists to pay little more than lip service to issues that may upset the apple cart. Instead, lyrics are broad enough to read like the slogans held aloft in Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi advert. But underneath pop’s top layer, below the major label machinations, there are pop rebels who have no choice but to speak out.
“When I first started I hid behind my artwork and didn’t show my face,” explains British-Pakistani Leo Kalyan who, as a gay Muslim musician, found himself in a category of one when he emerged with his brand of dreamy pop in 2013. Having achieved the various unwritten goals that had landed his peers six-figure record deals – No 1 on the global viral chart on Spotify; playlisted by Radio 1; more than a million plays on SoundCloud and sold-out headline shows – the still-unmasked Kalyan gained attention from labels only to fall at the last hurdle once his identity was revealed. “A friend works at a label and they overheard someone saying, ‘Yeah, Leo Kalyan, it would be so much easier if he was white.’ I started to feel like I would be boxed into a certain category whether I was upfront about my sexuality and ethnicity or not.”
This realisation led to last year’s independently released Fucked Up about “the conflicting intersectionality of being a person who is gay and from a Muslim background”. For Kalyan, this was about more than just vague identity politics. “I started getting messages from people all over the world saying, ‘I can’t believe someone is being open about their sexuality from a south Asian background.’” Even more explicit is this month’s No Man’s Land, Pt 1, which explores the idea that south Asians are being left out of the equality equation. “In the media, diversity is ticked once you’ve got a black person involved. Brown people simply aren’t being given a platform.”
With rebelliousness monetised by brands and purposeful pop feeling like a fad, it’s little wonder megastars stop at vague. “Katy Perry can always go back to doing California Girls,” Kalyan says. “[These pop stars] have the privilege to turn it on and off.” Unwittingly gifted the freedom of being fully independent, Kalyan can at least delve deeper into topics that connect more forcefully and more directly with his fanbase. “I don’t know how far I can go, but I’ve created a small but significant platform to be able to effect change.”
No Man’s Land, Pt 1 is out now
