Pakistani Teen From New Jersey Seeks To Make His Mark In Music
Tallal Ahmed talks about the beginnings of 2k and what’s to come

Tallal Ahmed isn’t your average Pakistani teenager.
While many others like him may be prepping for college applications with aspirations of pursuing careers in fields of medicine and engineering, Ahmed finds himself crafting his sound as an artist, more specifically a musician. As a South Asian making contemporary hip-hop and R&B music, he finds himself on a road still scorching from trailblazing acts like ZAYN and NAV.
“At first I had to hide my music, because I didn’t think (my parents) would like it, and I was low-key nervous about it.”
He recounts, “At first I had to hide my music, because I didn’t think (my parents) would like it, and I was low-key nervous about it. Then I made this song called Moved On that literally everyone who heard it loved and I knew they’d like it too. So on my birthday, I showed it to them and they were so surprised that that was me. My mom didn’t believe that was actually me for like a whole week.”
Ahmed and his family immigrated from Pakistan to the US when he was about 10 years old. It was there he met his best friend, Nick. They would go on to form the music collective known as 2k, a nod to the year they were both born. Ahmed’s personal Instagram feed displays his passion for both art and music. His individual style is heavily influenced by one of modern hip-hop’s fashion icons, A$AP Rocky. In a sense, he’s the quintessential millennial.
He appears to be a natural, who stumbled into his new art form. “I started making music March 2016, and I did it as a joke. But soon as I did it, I became the first person in my school to make a song and got a lot of attention from it, and I started liking creating songs,” he says. One of 2k’s early SoundCloud cuts, Doubted Me, is admittedly rough around the edges. But, it possess an undeniable lullaby-like quality. The catchy-ness of the songs refrain, sung by Ahmed, demonstrates an ear for melody. This is the first hint that 2k may be on to something.

“I want everyone to know that I’m working really hard to make something everlasting and beautiful.”
He doesn’t take it lightly. “I’ve always loved music since I was a kid, and always knew I wanted to do it at one point,” he proclaims. “I make music so people can relate to it, feel a certain way, understand me as a person and something people can vibe to and enjoy.” Ahmed tells us there’s more to expect from himself and 2k in the very near future. “I got this project I’ve been working on that will be coming in the next month, and that’s exactly what I’ll be aiming for.”
Ahmed wants everyone to know that he and 2k are not a flash in the pan. “I want everyone to know that I’m working really hard to make something everlasting and beautiful,” Ahmed says. “Not some generic corny shit you hear one day and forget the next. Something amazing. All I need is peoples support, that’s all I can ask for.”