Yasmine and Jahan of Krewella.
The Yousafs, both in their twenties, came of age in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, a period during which isolation at school was common amongst desi youth. "We didn't really talk about where we're from in junior high school, because we had this layer of shame over being muslim or Pakistani," says Yasmine. "All everybody ever knew about it was terrorism.""We're never asked about being Pakistani."—Krewella's Jahan Yousaf
Jai Wolf.
Jahan Yousaf from Krewella, live at TomorrowLand 2014.
By the time they had graduated, the sisters had started making music as Krewella with longtime friend Rainman. The trio even got matching tattoos proclaiming their commitment to the project. The group's hard-partying aesthetic and brash sound sat in stark contrast to the pious values of the masjid they'd prayed in barely a few years before. "When we first started touring, we were 19 and 21," says Jahan. "It was so new and a thrill." The group's debut album, Get Wet, with its themes of boozy partying and raver excess, went to #1 on the Billboard Dance charts in 2013. "Being sheltered my whole life, it was the first time I felt like a free bird," says Yasmine. "Like I could do whatever I wanted.""I felt like an outsider as a kid."—Jai Wolf
Jai Wolf live // Photo credit: Loren Wohl.
Atish // Photo credit: Galen Oakes.
Nobody understands this better than San Francisco-based DJ Atish, an emerging champion of the dusty tech-house culture crystallized at Burning Man. "For a majority of my life, I was a personification of the model minority stereotype," he explains. "My parents immigrated from India in the early 80s. I am the son of an electrical engineer, I did well in school, studied computer science at a good university, and worked as a software engineer for 10 years after graduating. To further complete the Indian-American stereotype, I was forced to play the violin at a very young age and was on the high school math team as well."It was only this year that Atish turned a complete about-face and quit his engineering gig to become a DJ full-time, an unheard of act of rebellion for a good desi boy. "This was the first time I broke free of the model minority stereotype," says Atish. "I definitely had to deal with feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt since I was going against the grain of what society might expect out of an Indian, and these feelings do still arise.""I definitely had to deal with feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt since I was going against the grain of what society might expect out of an Indian."—DJ Atish
Chris Gavino and Aseem Mangoakar of Hotel Garuda.
Yasmine of Krewella at Ultra Music Festival, 2014.
The nature of the ire expressed offered a glimpse into the way that modern discrimination functions: all too often quietly and unseen, but capable of exploding into public awareness at the drop of a tweet.For Aseem Mangoakar of Hotel Garuda, instances like the above provide an important opportunity to turn up the volume on what is often left unspoken. "There's a historical state of oppression that minorities live in," he says. "It's changing, slowly but surely, but it's something that people deserve to acknowledge. The majority [of people] don't even know what a micro-aggression is, and if they commit one, they're unlikely to be called out on it.""The majority of people don't even know what a micro-aggression is, and if they commit one, they're unlikely to be called out on it."—Hotel Garuda's Aseem Mangoakar
Hotel Garuda live at EDC Las Vegas, 2015.
Bindis as festival fashion // via EDMofY
Skrillex at Supersonic Festival in India, 2014 // Photo credit: Supersonic.
