The article introduces Berlin-based hardcore punk band Zanjeer, a migrant-driven collective whose music draws from the diasporic experiences of members from Pakistan, Colombia, England and Germany. It focuses on how the band uses fast, aggressive punk delivered in Urdu, Punjabi and Farsi to address themes of migration, nationalism, religious authoritarianism and xenophobia.

Berlin-based Zanjeer is a band powered by punk: multilingual, migrant-driven hardcore built on anger that crosses borders. The group first took shape in Bremen around 2020, bringing together musicians from Pakistan, Colombia, England and Germany who had previously played in DIY bands like MURO and AMENAZAS. Their goal was to make aggressive political punk that reflects the experience of people pushed to the margins by nationalism, religion, and migration politics. That mix of backgrounds shapes the band’s identity: the music sits squarely in the European d-beat tradition, but the perspective comes from diasporic lives navigating the contradictions of modern Europe.  

Their sound is often described as the mix of Discharge-style crust punk and darker UK hardcore, built on distorted bass, rapid-fire drums and serrated guitar riffs that rarely let a song run longer than a minute or two. The band attacks religious authoritarianism, but it also goes after nationalism, xenophobia and the bureaucratic hostility migrants encounter in Europe. Their writing pulls together personal dislocation and global politics — wars, authoritarian regimes, economic inequality — into short, furious statements.

At the centre of the band is vocalist Hassan Umer, who performs under the alias Dozakhi, an Urdu word that roughly translates to ‘hellish.’ Hassan’s delivery is closer to a political rant than a conventional punk vocal performance. He spits lyrics at a speed that matches the drums, sometimes switching languages mid-song. As a South Asian voice inside a largely white European punk ecosystem, Hassan treats the stage like a platform for confronting issues that stretch from far-right politics in Europe to authoritarian regimes in South Asia and the Middle East.

For Hassan, the themes running through Zanjeer’s music are inseparable from his own life. “This is definitely not a new impulse, as I've been making music with these themes since I was a teen. This is basically my whole life from the womb to the eventual tomb,” he says. Before moving to Germany, Hassan spent the first twenty-seven years of his life in Lahore. He grew up during a period shaped by militant violence, the global "War on Terror" and the destabilising aftermath of both. Pakistan’s Pashtun regions became a major epicentre of that conflict, and the ripple effects were felt across the country. He remembers watching the social fabric around him shift under the pressure of insecurity and fear.

Despite those restrictions, music still circulated widely through informal channels. Metal and punk records were easy to find in Lahore’s CD and tape stores, though places to perform were scarce. The lack of venues beyond theatres pushed young musicians toward building their own spaces. Inspired by international DIY punk movements, Hassan and his friends started forming bands and organising shows anywhere they could find space — basements, rehearsal rooms, improvised venues. “We never liked playing the victim. We only felt more pride and power at being able to pull off such wild things in such a society,” he notes.

The singer moved through several musical projects during those years. His main band at the time was a grind and punk outfit called Multinational Corporations. Later he fronted the punk group Dead Bhuttos, and eventually worked as a hip-hop artist under the name Polymath through the Daranti Group collective he founded. Alongside performing, he also organised shows across Lahore and eventually helped establish an independent cultural space.

The Inner City Art Center emerged with the support of O Positive Studios, who took a chance on the young organiser’s ambitions. Their trust helped turn what began as scattered underground events into a more stable hub for music and art. Outside music, Hassan was also involved in political organising with a Marxist party and spent time visiting Sufi shrines, drawing inspiration from both radical politics and spiritual traditions.

When he moved to Germany at twenty-seven, that mindset already shaped how he approached music. The early Zanjeer material largely continued the ideas he had explored earlier in Pakistan. The band’s first album, he explains, carried forward themes he had been writing about during his years with Multinational Corporations between 2012 and 2017.

At the time, he was still adjusting to life as a new immigrant, and much of his writing remained tied to the politics of the place he had left behind. “I was a new immigrant so I was mostly still more concerned with the politics of my 'past life' but over time my experiences in Europe have shaped me in much more significant ways, making me even more staunchly left-wing,” he notes.

With stable electricity, functioning infrastructure, and fewer survival concerns, he found himself with more space to analyse global power structures and the politics shaping migration and war. Access to a dense network of punk venues across Germany also opened doors that had rarely existed in Pakistan’s underground scene. For someone who had spent years organising shows in improvised locations, the experience felt surreal.

However, Zanjeer’s upcoming record 'Seher-e-Maqhoor' takes shape against a moment that left a visible impact on immigrant communities across Germany. It was written during the ongoing war in Gaza, a period that weighed heavily on the band as they watched events unfold from within Europe. Hassan describes that atmosphere as something that deeply unsettled his own understanding of the West. “I personally had my whole positive impression of the West completely shattered in irreparable ways. Watching not just German state support the carnage but also vast swaths of German punks as well, was an absolutely dilapidating experience,” says Hassan. “As a result, the songs on the new record are much more critical of Germany and the West as compared to the previous record, with songs talking about not just Palestine but about the war-torn politics of migration, rejection of national identity, Islamophobia, etc.”

The music itself came together quickly through a tight working dynamic between guitarist Ludwig and drummer Steve. Much of the record was shaped over a few intense rehearsal stretches, where the two would put together multiple songs within days.“They'd seemlessly bounce ideas back and forth and I think we made some really strong and catchy songs in the process, while also building on the sound of the first record and taking it into a more interesting direction musically,” he recalls.

The final pieces came together with bassist Giacomo adding his bass lines, while the artwork draws from the 1857 Indian revolt, tying the record’s visual identity to a longer history of anti-colonial resistance. With the album complete, Hassan shares, “All things considered, I'm very proud of this record, and can't wait to hold the LP in my hands in a few days, and more importantly — to immediately make new music!”

Follow Zanjeer here.

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