The enchanting cousins: Zebunnia Bangash and Haniya Aslam

Talk to Zebunnia Bangash and Haniya Aslam and it’s hard to visualise them as two famous singers with a fan following. While one is easily surprised at their humility, the passion with which they woo music is hard to miss. No wonder that their journey brought them to the threshold of Mumbai, where they’re collaborating with Hindi film lyricist and music director Swanand Kirkire and Shantanu Moitra for The Dewarists online music travelogue.

With both being keen on music since childhood, the cousins came together to make some music when they were in their early 20s, explains Zeb. “We always had music in our family. But our career plans were different. But Haniya and I would always be writing something and working on some tunes together. By the time she came to Lahore, we already had 12 to 13 songs ready. So we decided to just go ahead and record. It wasn’t something we consciously decided to do, but it was more like a natural flow of things. And that’s how our first album happened — by chance,” she says.

But that’s a thing of the past. Coke Studio came as a blessing in disguise for the two musicians as their popularity skyrocketed. And now, they’re back to doing something very special once again.

“We like the way Dewars conceptualised this online video — each collaboration is unique and they have allowed us to remain as independent as we are. We shot the video in Mumbai and loved the way we were taken out of our comfort zones,” says Zeb.

Working with the two film musicians, Haniya says that there were most comfortable with Swanand and Shantanu. “We had come across work that Shantanu and Swanand had done together and we loved their music and have listened to it over and over again. It was amazing the way we got along with each other; it was as if we were old friends. I guess we had the same mindset, the same direction as to where the music video should go,” Haniya adds.
Agreeing with her cousin, Zeb says, “I was trying hard to figure out the song we were going to do and Shantanu said to me, “don’t think about the song so much — let go” — and we did and it worked out fabulously.”

Currently working on the next album, EP (Extended Play) Zeb says that the collection has about five to six songs, each of which comes from space of its own. “We participated a lot more in the studio this time — arrangement and production wise. We let each song go through its natural conclusion this time, quite unlike our first album,” says Zeb.

Experiencing fame on a very different level, Zeb and Haniya agree that creating music on their own gives them the liberty to choose their own path. “We haven’t done any commissioned work; we have been creating our songs, doing our own thing. Also, we haven’t been around for that long either. There have been times when we hated some of our songs and scrapped them. But no, we have no genre or style — we let the songs take their own route and make the music we like.”