Ostinato Records is proudly a Black and Brown operated indie label. What does that mean?

We’ve refrained from projecting this in the past because we genuinely didn’t think it was necessary. Just focus on the work, keep your head down, produce great albums, and reveal great stories that lay siege to the lies of empire.

But given the current moment, we feel inspired to celebrate that Ostinato is proudly a Black and Brown owned and operated label. And while those terms make more sense in a western, particularly US, setting, they do a great disservice to the multitude of complex identities held by peoples from immensely diverse societies in Africa and Asia. Nevertheless, identities of color form a powerful lexicon which binds our collective struggle.

The heavy groundwork we do in various countries is made possible by my Senegalese-German partner in madness, Janto, on the right, and myself, Vik, born in India, raised in Southeast Asia, and trained in the US, on the left. We bring the experiences of our many worlds to this label and we are firmly, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually attached to the global South. In my case, physically. A victory for one country in the South is a victory for all of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Our histories, traumas, and struggles, and successes are forever connected.

We are one of the very few Black and Brown owned and operated indie labels. We are not asking for charity or support because of it. We just want to flaunt that banner proudly and loudly because, at long last, we finally have a license to do so.

I will say that both Janto and I have had to break a lot of barriers many would never face to do this work. The world was never designed for us to produce albums like we do. We were always meant to be the exhibit, not the visitor; the fixer, not the journalist; the subject, not the storyteller. Janto as a Black man in Europe systematically overlooked for opportunities and myself as a non-western citizen.

As I’ve written about in a viral article, passports are the greatest determinant of one’s opportunities and one’s place in brutally stratified world order. The global apartheid we face today is one of citizenship.

I am allowed to travel to only 58 countries without a months-long visa process that costs hundreds of dollars and requires paperwork like bank statements, tax returns, and police and health reports. European and other western label owners can travel to over 180 countries on a whim without a single background check — seem fair to you? Passport privilege is also a big reason why most label owners, journalists, documentarians, and other traveling storytellers, are westerners: they can travel wherever they want whenever they want.

The countries we release music from has as much to do with Ostinato’s guiding philosophy, as laid out in my TED talk, as much as the countries I can visit without too much hassle. For instance, I am not allowed to spend extended periods of time in Brazil, preventing any real work from being done there. Ecuador recently slapped a $400 visa with impossible additional requirements on Indians, canceling a project there. I am more or less banned from visiting the beautiful country of Lebanon for no other reason than racism.

We have both grown up being treated with suspicion everywhere we go. Our accolades and achievements mean very little in a world taught to see as threats. Trust me, we have to to put up with a lot more bullshit — because of things literally assigned at birth — to produce the albums we do. There are huge ceilings placed on us that we have to smash right through. And as history shows, when Black and Brown people smash through ceilings, we reach the very top, as evidenced by a Grammy-nomination, features in every major newspaper in North America and Western Europe, and beloved albums in just 4 years of operation.

Indeed, this is not to say we have no privilege at all. I’ve had the rare opportunity to receive a world-class education. I have been afforded far more than the vast majority of 1.4 billion people in India. Janto, as a German national, is blessed with a document that makes borders melt, and has been crucial in Ostinato’s achievements. But when the chips are down, in the eyes of a world system built by people who don’t look like us, we are simply Black and Brown.

You’re probably wondering: how does this translate to our dealings with musicians, artists, producers, and the like?

Well, it’s simple. We don’t operate from a place of guilt, but solidarity and equality.

Guilt manifests as folks signaling their ethics and widely sharing the types of deals they do with artists. This is a paternalistic, patronizing attitude which strips all agency from the people of the global South. It’s the equivalent of petting someone on the head and saying “you poor thing.” This is not the approach with white, western artists, so why is it the approach with artists from the global South? Because there is a guilt that has to be constantly reconciled and overcome.

We sit on an equal footing and treat musicians from Africa, Asia, and Latin America the same as we’d treat artists from anywhere else. That’s what real equality looks like. That means sitting on the same roundtable on the same level, not a pedestal looking down.

Why should you not? Assuming, for example, that African artists don’t know how to read a contract or negotiate a deal in their best interest is an extremely problematic position. Record labels aren’t charities, but businesses with a purpose. We make our offer, the other party counters, and we reach a mutually favorable agreement. Every single deal is different because we afford agency to every person as an individual, not part of a collective in need of saving or charity. The vast majority of negotiations we’ve been involved in have been expectedly difficult because guess what?! Black and Brown people actually know a thing or two about negotiating a deal and looking out for themselves! Amazing, isn’t it?

And what artists demand ranges widely. Some have genuinely told us to use their songs without cost because they appreciate the project and don’t need the money. Some, like the affluent Kamal Tarbas in Sudan, simply told us to pay him extra up front and forgo the royalties. Some demand little, some meet us half way, some demand more than we can afford. If anyone came to Janto and I and told us they were going to make an offer that did not require us to negotiate heavily, that would simply be insulting to our agency and intelligence. Sure, some artists are much older, in poorer health, and need more guidance, which is when basic morality kicks in. But that is a tiny, tiny minority of the deals we’ve done.

And it goes without saying that with our latest project in Djibouti, the government negotiators ran circles around us. This is why I have long advocated for historical music works to be the sole domain of cultural institutions, be it public or private, in the country themselves. In the case of Djibouti, it is the country that is the gatekeeper of its cultural treasures — what a novel idea! It determines the terms and most importantly, the value, instead of Discogs or eBay.

Digging up a bunch of records or siphoning a series of cassettes and other recordings out of their home is an expression of control and power, which should rest entirely with people in the country in question. This is also why we primarily work with archives where explicit approval and permission is required and songs are digitized so no physical legacies vacate the country.

This is what a Black and Brown approach entirely detached from historic guilt looks like. It’s also why we are transitioning away from reissues and historical compilations to studio recordings that straddle old and new.

We sincerely hope that the side of the fence we’re on and the barriers we’ve had to break down shows in every piece of work we produce. Being on the other side of the fence allows you to bring an intimate historical understanding to your work, and in turn a deep seated empathy for the richness and subtlety of countries, peoples, and cultures long relegated to the margins of our imagination.

Africa and Asia are the future and there will be many, many more labels in the future that will be Afro-Asian enterprises. We are also proud to be the first on that front, connecting two continents in a small way — a solidarity the leaders of 1970s Africa and Asia dreamed of and fought for adamantly. Remember where you come from and fight for it. This is what laying siege to empire looks like.

To conclude, I want to share a poem by the late, great Uruguayan anti-imperial writer, Eduardo Galeano:

The nobodies: nobody’s children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way.

Who are not, but could be.
Who don’t speak languages, but dialects.
Who don’t have religions, but superstitions.
Who don’t create art, but handicrafts.
Who don’t have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.