One of Pakistan's most promising music duos began with a standoff.
Four years ago, aspiring singer Afusic was looking for producers to help him show his range – nimble enough to deliver punchy raps and agile enough to slip into a romantic croon.
A search on Instagram led him to the page of Ali Soomro, a fellow native of the southern city of Hyderabad. Both were desperate to leave their day jobs. Afusic was juggling shifts taking orders for Papa John's pizza while working as a sales representative for a medical supply company in Karachi. Soomro was hustling through odd maintenance jobs and selling beats for advertising campaigns.
Neither had time to waste, which perhaps explained the curt tone of their first exchange.
"Afusic hit me up on Instagram and asked for a beat," Soomro recalls. "At that time I wasn't a known producer. I just had a few beats on my Instagram. I was broke and I told him I couldn't collaborate like that. I needed to get paid.
"He was honest and said he wasn't making any money from music, and that was where it ended. We didn't talk for a year."
Four years on, the pair describe themselves as brothers. They spoke to The National in Dubai after a packed show at The Agenda. While billed as an Afusic solo concert, Soomro's presence behind the decks was more than support.
He produced Pal Pal and Heer, viral hits in Pakistan and India that paved the way for their maiden UAE visit and a Canadian tour later this year. Their latest single, Kanwal, is out now.
It was a chemistry born away from music – just two young men, sharing their hopes and frustrations as they tried to build careers in an industry still perceived as favouring traditional sounds over modern pop.
"We really had nothing else going on," Afusic says. "So we became friends before we spoke again about music. Even when we did make music, it was more about getting to know ourselves better. You can actually hear that development in the songs."
The progression is clear in Pal Pal, their breakout hit with more than 250 million YouTube streams since its release in February. It was their 22nd single in four years. An ambient hip-hop track about spurned romance, the production could easily be used for a pop ballad. The chorus is conversational and catchy without tipping into excess, while Afusic – quiffed in purple in the video – carries himself like a brooding rap star, his flashes of smile adding to the track's bittersweet appeal.
Although the song arrived deep into their catalogue, Afusic recalls it was finished more than a year earlier. Sensing it could be the one to push them towards quitting their day jobs, they chose to hold it back, releasing other tracks while building the profile and resources needed to give Pal Pal the attention it deserved.
"The song really ticked all the right boxes, in that it could be played in a club or when you are alone," Soomro says. "It's emotional and danceable and I remember we were hoping that we just wanted this song to travel as much as it can, and so we held on to it to make sure we were in a position where we were ready for it to happen."
Industry push arrived with Spotify adding the song to the Pakistan version of the Fresh Finds playlist, highlighting independent artists gaining traction on the platform, and the song subsequently hit the local Top Songs chart, which included entries by pop group Aur and singer Zeeshan Ali.
Afusic admits it is still strange to see his name prominently placed on major platforms, a few clicks away from artists such as Drake and Post Malone, whose songs he once covered on Instagram. It was Soomro who pushed him to soften his sound and add more singing to his repertoire.
“He was the one that encouraged me to explore my singing voice. It was the kind of encouragement I never had or knew I needed,” Afusic says.
For Soomro, the steady partnership proved just as necessary. “It can be tough because as a producer you are often by yourself, just making beats for whoever will take them,” he says. “But if you really have a creative partner it makes everything so much better because you both help each other get stronger.”
That realisation prompted him to adjust his earlier stance on payment for beats. “In the music industry in Pakistan, you really have only yourself to rely on, so it’s very important to develop the attitude of getting paid for your work,” he says. “But it’s also just as important to have collaborators and not do it all by yourself.”
For Afusic, the success affirmed another principle. “When we started we really didn’t have much happening in our career,” he says. “So instead of walking away, we stuck together and kept going.”
