Why we love Riz Ahmed
Listening to the voices that tell me my stories
As Mauritius went back under lockdown after being virtually COVID-19 free for 9 months, I hit a bit of a writing and reading slump. Nonetheless, March 2021 was Brown and beautiful. I read Arundhati Roy’s Azadi and Avni Doshi’s Burnt Sugar (thoughts loading), danced to Priya Ragu’s Chicken Lemon Rice and spent a lot of time listening to one album in particular.
Last month I promised a deep dive on Riz Ahmed. Here we are.
I'm definitely not the outlier here - every woke Brown millennial girl worth her salt has nursed some sort of crush on Riz Ahmed. He's the familiar Brown face I'd feel represented by in the likes of Venom, Star Wars and earlier on, Nightcrawler. I didn't know much about him, only that I liked to see his melanin on screen. This rapidly changed this year. Ahmed recently delivered a stunning performance in Sound of Metal (2019), which has earned him a number of accolades this awards season. This was my first time seeing him as a lead. This is to say he's no longer ticking the diversity check box, he's the main attraction.
In Sound of Metal, he portrays a former junkie, now a drummer, addicted to his music and his girlfriend-bandmate. Right on the cusp of his biggest break yet, he suddenly loses his ability to hear and in the process, loses everything he cares about. We see him relapse into various iterations of addiction as he tries to keep the pieces of his life together. He reluctantly becomes part of a deaf community and eventually adapts, learns to live differently and be one of them. Riz has said in many interviews since, that his time preparing for the movie and learning ASL had taught him a great deal about what it means to truly communicate with one another. The Academy has deemed this performance Oscar-worthy. Fingers crossed!
All of this is fine and dandy but we haven't even reached the good part yet. As much as I appreciate seeing a cool Brown man doing his thing in the mainstream, this doesn't account for why we all love him so much. After watching the movie, I wanted to see more of him. As it turns out, Riz Ahmed has been busy. He got married (as many of us learned and grieved, Lilly Singh I’m looking at you), released an album and co-wrote and acted in Mogul Mowgli. He also had a series of lengthy conversations with other Brown creatives - when pandemic struck last year - in which they discuss identity, home and being a Brown person in the limelight. He’s really doing it all!
While looking for more Riz Ahmed content to consume, I learned that parallel to his acting career, he rapped under the moniker Riz MC. His second studio album, The Long Goodbye, which came out right before COVID-19 hit (which may have limited its reach), is a total trip for the senses. Drawing from his Pakistani heritage, he juxtaposes qawalli vocal samples, temple bell sounds and snippets from private conversations in Urdu with his killer - and I mean KILLER - verses that speak to the identity gymnastics, the persecution and the tireless displacement of growing up Brown and Muslim in Britain. Riz spits political bars like no other and his lyricism is caustic. With Spotify finally being available in Mauritius, The Long Goodbye and Swet Shop Boys' (fellow Brown rapper Heems’ and Riz's hip hop duo) album Cashmere have been on repeat all month. I particularly recommend Deal With It, Mogambo, Where You From, Terminal 5 and Din-e-iLahi. But hey, both albums are well worth your time from start to finish.
Here are some of the verses that really did it for me.
I’m on the in flight magazine
When the TSA stop me
They don’t like no fugees
But still killing us softly
Deal With It
They put their boots on our ground
I put my roots in their ground
I put my truth in this sound
I'll spit my truth and it's brown
Fast Lava
Now everybody everywhere want their country back
If you want me back to where I'm from then bruv I need a map
Where You From
Next on my Riz list:
Four Lions (2010) - a satirical take on waging jihad
The Night Of (2016) - an award-winning crime drama miniseries
Coeur sur toi, Riz! 🤎
"Every woke Brown millennial girl worth her salt has nursed some sort of crush on Riz Ahmed"
= laughing emojis. This is so true! His art and especially his music and the long interviews he gave about his identity as a British Asian Muslim man who grew up in Wembley in the 1980s are one of the things that motivated me to pursue a PhD in Sociology! And Where you from is so, so powerful.
In case useful: his chapter in Good Immigrant really resonated with me when I lived in London. Also there's a good hour long interview with him on Louis Theroux's podcast. Finally, his performance in the HBO limited series The Night Of is fab.