If you’ve spent any time at Paloma Coffee and Bakery, you’ve probably talked to Ammar Farooki. But when he’s not making coffee, serving up artisanal pastries, or striking up a conversation with anyone and everyone who comes in, Farooki is also a musician currently working on releasing his debut album, Twelve.
Farooki was born and raised in Pakistan, where he always dreamed of making music (and performing said music in New York City). He spent years of his life learning and playing as a hobby while pursuing business school and eventually a corporate job in marketing, resulting in about 10 to 15 songs being written between 2012 and 2015. However, it wasn’t until he got a push from his friend, mentor, and fellow Pakistani musician Farhad Humayan that he decided to pursue music for real. Humayan also invited Farooki and his now-wife, French journalist Diane Desobeau, to play their first show in Lahore, Pakistan, and he also played drums on the first song Farooki ever recorded.
“[Humayan] basically just sat me down and was like, ‘Listen, anyone can be a banker or do what you’re doing, but you need to write these songs,'” Farooki recalled. “I started playing shows in Pakistan, but the dream was always to play in New York, because that’s what my heroes had done, and people who had inspired me.”
In 2019, he and Desobeau moved to Greenpoint, where they’ve been ever since. And they’ve managed to maintain a solid momentum of performing as a duo at venues like Rockwood Music Hall and The Bitter End. And the neighborhood has had an incredible impact on Farooki’s music and songwriting process.
“I grew up in Pakistan. I lived there all my life. My dad was in the Army, so we moved around a lot — we would move every year, year and a half. So I’ve never lived long enough in a place to feel at home,” Farooki said. “And since we moved here, this is the first place which feels like a community that I belong in.
Paloma, where he’s been working for the past two years, has also provided its own special community.
“I never thought that I would get to know the neighborhood like that, through talking to people all day and getting their stories and getting to know about their lives, and meeting musicians and actors and people from the neighborhood; becoming friends with people I didn’t even know were musicians or actors,” Farooki noted.
He recalls that he connected with one of the album’s collaborators, Marta Bagratuni, simply by asking her what she played when she walked into Paloma with an instrument on her back (a cello). Together, they recorded a cello track featured on Twelve.
“Everyday lives affect us,” Farooki said. “As a singer-songwriter, that creeps into my writing.”
When it comes to Twelve, Farooki began working on the album about three years ago, and its creation is dedicated to Humayan, who sadly died from cancer not long after Farooki moved here. The album (which follows his first EP Songs from the Cave in 2019) was created and produced at home with the help of musicians from all around the globe, plus co-producer Sarmad Ghafoor, a friend from Pakistan who flew in from Scotland. Artists include top sitar player from Rakae Jamil, celebrated Pakistani bassist Sameer Ahmed, and more.
Farooki and Desobeau are currently working on a Kickstarter to help with promotional aspects and vinyl pressing of the debut record and plan to release it this summer.
“It feels like the best way I can honor one of my best friends,” he said.