Meet Pav4n: Strength in Numbers & Seeing the Future
Watch: Strength in Numbers by Pav4n via YouTube
Disruptive. That’s what comes to mind first when I think of PAV4N.
If you’re not familiar with his work your memory may be jogged with the fact that he is also a founding member of the UK hip hop group, Foreign Beggars. But, if you aren’t familiar with the hip hop scene, you’ll definitely remember PAV4N for his mind-bending aesthetic peppered with elements of Hindu mythology and the endless amounts of gold drip resting on his blue-tinted physique. When you first encounter his music, you’ll also immediately recognize classical Indian instrumentals with heavy bass and trap beats. And as you get deeper into his works, you’ll quickly realize every song is a mantra – you get roped in and captivated before you are even really able to comprehend why you’re so fixated. Yet, when you do start to understand, you’ll be quick to experience a tranquil acceptance of an emotionally and spiritually rich ride where you'll begin to see layers of the world that has always been in front of you. Such is what I like to call, the PAV4N EFFECT. When this happens, I’m floored, I’m schooled, and a lot of the internal storm within me starts making more sense.
PAV4N dropped a single called Strength in Numbers on May 13 – one that is a mighty mantra dripping in emotional and spiritual medicine as we process the horrors happening right now in the world.I’ve been tapping into the sheer power of this tune and channeling it to rebuild my own personal armour as I reflect about current global affairs since its release. Listening to PAV4N speak is like accessing pure, unfiltered streams of consciousness that see things as they are – so uncannily that it’s like he’s also seeing the future. This is something I don’t take lightly. It’s one of the few instances where I’ve instantly taken the backseat with ease to simply listen and reflect.
My own consciousness takes a while to respond to PAV4N’s energy because it recognizes the momentary trancelike state between his energetically sharp and quick observations of reality. This is something you’ll be quick to catch as you read on. It’s happened every time I’ve interacted with him, and unsurprisingly, when we video chatted for the first time for this piece.
PAV4N was kind enough to catch up with me so I could pick his brain about the track and figure out how and why it is so crucially accurate in contextualizing the world we live in.
they robbin’ us blind, they sellin’ our futures. creating more debt, they render us useless. the banks get stronger, the poor get poorer. till those who believe believe no longer.
J: Tell me about your thought process behind the lyrics and sound of the track.
PAV4N: This track was giving me goosebumps. I think if I’m having a physical reaction, it indicates this is working – whether it changes my heart rate or gives me goosebumps or makes me want to stand up and do shit. It sounded like some kind of big procession. Like a protest song, a march, or a call to action. I was imagining a big crowd of people moving in unison to change, for change. It had some gravity behind it, and there was real space for lyrics. It just shook me to the core.
With Karma, I’m saying similar things but it’s not quite on the nose. Karma was about where we are at as a human species. With Strength in Numbers, the target I’m speaking to is you. For me, seeing everything happen, a right wing shift in England, France, Brazil, and suddenly India. I’m observing how easily people are now manipulated. We as South Asians kind of have a slight naivety or innocence, or we're quite submissive as a general population in terms of listening to authority. But, I’m just done with all the social hypocrisy that comes with it. The social pressures that come with family values – which are beautiful, but when it comes to the showing of the public face, how much people value money and property over actual family values like love and relationships and nurturing these things is increasing. People would rather manipulate, control, and silence their children, so that they look good in public, as opposed to actually, you know, growing their children in a beautiful loving way.
Then, we saw big shifts with current political affairs with Hinduism being attached to nationalism and the detrimental effects of this. The result is just gaslighting the shit out of people and manipulating them constantly, just like the trend in twisted family values we are seeing. Inequality within genders and caste and between people is growing at massive rates. All of that shift is coming together and unfolding in the ugliest, most hurtful and grotesque ways.
It is being sold to everybody that this is new progress, that we’re making a different world, but you know, each level is bought by putting your foot on someone else’s neck, and everyone who believes in this progress is being used as a tool to further create divisions through the process of being turned into little consumption bots. This paradigm is squeezing and squeezing vulnerable people in reality.
I've tried to be poetic with how I put everything down. But I've been a bit ‘no holds barred’ with the lyrics. There's no subtext, it's just straight in your face. For me, it needed to be simple because we need to fucking understand and see here because everything that’s been happening has been an extension of a bigger propaganda machine.
leading from deep in their fortresses, while leaving their people impoverished.
they brandish our truth a hypothesis, while preachers convene to dishonour us.
Watch: PAV4N Live @ Dubai Opera via YouTube
J: How important is artivism to you? Why?
PAV4N: Especially in hip hop, everything I’ve learned and received is information that has come from people who go through struggles and don’t necessarily have a platform to communicate. But, this is such a beautiful platform because it goes under the radar for so many people. People who really care about things get the subtext of what’s going on. I think this is very important because it makes its way into certain places where certain voices wouldn’t get that platform. If Banksy comes out and does something it’s going to be a hit whether or not the piece itself changes anything. But, even if it just manages to raise awareness and communicates the issue or what’s going on to people, then that’s what really matters the most.
Art is literally something that historically has had the power to break pillars or constructs that society, government, religion, everything those in control construct into place – whether they came about naturally or were imposed. Art and music go straight to the core and break all of that ish.
You’ll see lots of artists bring up things in different ways. Look at what Bob Marley did in Jamaica and how he’s impacted our thoughts and understanding of our emotions even today.
Now, social media is a medium to bring more awareness to an issue. And awareness still happens through music, be it through a ‘where’s the love’ vibe or a more direct approach, which is one that I’ve chosen to take.
Everybody going through any struggle anywhere or anyone living a peaceful life provides a gateway for progressive thought and empathy. To me, this is artivism.
they’re keeping us quarrelling all of us, they’re keeping us beefing through monitors. then, monitor all of our purchases, they keepin us begging and borrowing.
J: This song does so well at capturing not only what’s happening in India during this battle with COVID, but throughout the rest of the world.
PAV4N: With hop hop coming about, the voice has broken through. People can speak, they can communicate and the younger generations can speak in a slang that these elitist mf’s or authorities can’t understand. This was seen in the 80s, where hip hop broke out in New York. But now, as it becomes more mainstream, the challenge becomes the increasing global political threats that come from free speech channeled through mediums like hip hop. How do we navigate this as artists and as populations? It’s completely new territory.
We have to speak our minds at some point. We keep thinking things are going to change and get better as new policies get put in place. But, if you look at Israel, Palestine, nothing’s changed since I was growing up, or when I wrote this song two years ago.
J: I can’t believe you wrote this song two years ago. I think it would be more relevant now than it was two years ago.
PAV4N: We have forgotten what the eye of the storm was when we were living back then because we’re always in the eye of the storm for some reason.
J: What’s next for you?
Pav4n: More music, more music. The record label is kicking up (4NC¥). Looking at the present, with everything going on, the world’s a mixed up place, and so the present is the future already. I feel as if I’m already living in the future. I can infiltrate anywhere.
