Tags: New Music
Pallaví dropped her latest music video “Identity” this month.
In the video, Pallaví (aka Fijiana) tackles the erasure of Indo-Fijian culture in mainstream discourse head-on. She pulls themes of marginalization and appropriation into a powerful song that simultaneously criticizes systemic oppression and celebrates the nuances of her community. The video is full of brown femmes who surround Pallaví in varied settings and stances, from praying to dancing in front of a Fijian store to standing still, surrounded by plant life, demonstrating the fullness and variety in Fijian lives and stories.
In the chorus, Pallaví repeats, “hailing from the coolie diaspora / know what that mean / that I’m a brown bitch / melanin rich / Fijian queen,” calling out and lifting up her own identity. She goes on to give an alternative explanation, rapping, “hailing from the coolie diaspora / know what that mean / it means my people had to struggle / just to try to be seen.”
“That’s why we need to continue in order to create,” Pallaví goes on to tell us. With “Identity,” she’s doing just that.