My early twenties were spent basking of the glorious filmographies of Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah. An experience that left me with an impression of the cowboy as somewhat of a mercenary character. Lonesome, tired, driven by hunger and an insatiable desire to fill his fists with dollars. When I finally moved out west, I had the occasion to meet some actual cowboys. My impression of them didn’t change that much. However, these encounters forced the realization that my mental image of the cowboy applied to most Americans rather evenly, rather than this subset of humanity in particular. I find the vision of the cowboy depicted by
Sunny Jain in his latest studio album
Wild Wild East and encouraging alternative. Jain uses the lens of his own experience as a first-generation Asian American, and the history of his father and mother’s journey from east Punjab to the United States in the ‘70s, to recast the pioneering image of the dust-caked western wranglers of legend, as a rightful people of alien origin, making due in an unfamiliar place, living for the future, as they scrape through today. Jain's interpretation of the cowboy forces a confrontation with the conflation of native people and South Asians but colonizers, by centering the experience of the latter's attempts to survive in the lawless space created by the displacement of the former. The opener “Immigrant Warrior” begins the tale of Jain’s self-discovery in the limbo of the west with galloping percussion that propels an Ennio Morricone inspired desert passage wrapped Bhangra flair. The journey continues on the lush, bluesy inflection and prickly rapt of the title track featuring singer Ganavya’s sandspout summoning call. The most evocative to my ears though is the collaboration with rapper Haseeb on “Red, Brown, Black,” an allusion to the colors of the US flag, a message of solidarity with the victims of disenfranchisement and brutality who recognize each other in their intersecting struggles beneath its shadow.
Wild Wild East is an inspiring summit of ideas which serves to evaluate our national character in an inclusive and forthright manner. Through a fresh interpretation of our presumed cultural heritage, it may yet be possible to awake from the nightmare of history. The key is other's dreams. Dreams of freedom and possibility. Dreams whose seeds came from far off lands, but which found good soil and took root here, and now blossom under the fathomless skies of the wide-open plains.
Grab it from Smithsonian Folkways,
here.
