Diverse Culture And Various Forms Of Art In Karachi
Karachi is a city with diverse culture and various forms of art. Visual art is a wide area that incubates a lot of different forms of art. Anything that can be visually witnessed can be categorized under visual art. For the basic understanding of what comes under visual arts a few examples will be sculptures, painting, printmaking, designs, crafts, photography, video, film making and architecture. It is an art that is produced through digital means. Arts such as animation, film making and design can also be categorized as visual art.
The Roadside Café in Karachi, has its walls painted with the faces of our Pakistani music industry. Since music and Karachi has a really old relationship. As the music culture in Karachi especially in the 60’s and 70’s was at its peak. In the late 70’s, minorities started realizing their significance and ownership to the country. Whilst creating opportunities to start getting recognized and accepted in public sphere. From owning to reputed hospitals to schools and getting to prestigious positions in public service. As mainly the musicians came from the families of minorities and once they started operating in public sphere, their art was soon recognized by the masses which back in those days was open to different form of arts and visual culture.
Initially Live Music played a vital role in all events such as weddings, parties, and night clubs. Night clubs were specifically for the foreigners where the local musicians used to perform live music on request of the guests (i.e. the foreigners). Multi-talented artists of Karachi used to perform using various instruments such as saxophone, drums, piano, and double bass guitar. From 1970’s onwards artists such as Quincy Jones, Duke Ellington, Count Bassey and The Beatles started visiting Pakistan, specifically Karachi to perform. Karachi and art have a deep bond since centuries as the first and the only gramophone manufacturing company in undivided India was located in Karachi by the name Haydn & Coy. Their inventories included tambourines, music sheets, flutes, drum-sticks etc. Experts of different technical fields were rare yet available in Karachi. Ones that were available back then were considered to be the geniuses of their specific areas such as, Uncle Schwartz repaired amplifiers at Regal who was considered a technical genius by the musicians. He is one of such many examples.
Night club culture to cater to the diplomats had increased live music and dance culture which allowed clubs to have their own bands allowing the city to bring forward numerous talented artists. The pre-dominant genre was of course Western music. Bands copied with disco- people enjoyed a variety of music. The music in demand was covers of popular music- they had perfected that to the extent where one couldn’t make the difference out. Some discos kept their prices exceptionally high so as to maintain a clearly affluent clientele. Samar was notorious for brawls. Karachi experienced a great downfall in the music scene at the time of Zia Ul Haq, but soon in the 90’s, the music scene of Karachi had a revival.
