Who are the Ghost Peppers?
What happens when a Bengali-origin English professor and Partition scholar at a university in Florida starts to collaborate with fellow English professors on Rabindra Sangeet (Tagore music) and Urdu poetry?
You get a music band called Ghost Peppers — an unlikely musical team emerging from University of Central Florida, Orlando, aiming to bridge divides, using music to challenge the complex cross-border dynamics of India–Pakistan relations.
Partition scholar Amrita Ghosh and fellow English professor Kevin Meehan launched the band in August 2023, roping in fellow English professor James Campbell, the drummer and percussionist. Guitarist Eddy Jo Martinez, a school counselor, joined for their debut album No Borders, released in February this year.
Their first single ‘Azaadi/Liberation’ forms part of their debut album released in February this year, marked with a concert on 20 February at the eclectic cultural hub Stardust Video and Coffee in Orlando.
I first heard about Ghost Peppers from Amrita Ghosh who was among the speakers at the Southasia Peace Action Network inaugural Circle Meeting in January 2026.
he Sapan January Circle brings together members and supporters of the Southasia Peace Action Network (Sapan) for a conversation on the past year and looking ahead (video source sapannews)
Azaadi
We watched her music video Azaadi after the formal meeting ended – and what an uplifting experience that was.
The song begins with a heartbeat of dissent as the chant “Azaadi” emerges from the mix, setting a tone of collective defiance. Their sound is both deeply rooted in cultural tradition and as well as refreshingly unbound by it. The engaging blend of Southasian classical influences, and Western rock structures expands into a rich layering of rhythm and melody, anchored by James Campbell’s vibrant percussion.
The drumbeats echo the relentlessness of the chant, creating a sonic loop that feels both grounding and unyielding. Azaadi is a protest song, which also feels like an anthem of solidarity.
Azaadi/Liberation by Ghost Peppers, features in their debut album No Borders released 20 February 2026, produced by Sugar City Music (video source sapannews)
“Striving against the limitations imposed by borders has particular meanings in India and Pakistan,” they say in a report published in American Kahani. “But those limitations and the aspirations to transcend them are universal. May the message of ‘Azaadi/Liberation’ rise across differences in language, musical taste, generations, genders, sexualities and castes, until the idea of ‘borders’ itself becomes a distant reality.”
Artists from academia
The band’s scholarly backgrounds articulate their artistic approach, reflecting what Bao Le-Huu, music columnist at The Orlando Weekly terms as a project “rooted in scholarship yet alive with creative energy” that “dissolves boundaries of genre, geography, and voice.”
In 2025, Ghosh and Meehan performed an acoustic tour across several cities, including Malmö, Stockholm, and Växjö in Sweden, as well as New York, sharing their new music that brings together audiences across these cultural spaces just before returning to finish the album with the entire band.
The album includes the band’s 2025 debut, the Red EP (extended play), a collaboration with Pakistani singer Sana Illahe on the song Ek Dhaaga (“A Thread”), about a thread of light that connects us all.
Le-Huu calls the Red EP “a bright exemplar of world fusion music… — a folk duo blending South Asian and American traditions” layering “original Urdu, Hindi, and English lyrics over classical Indian ragas and beats borrowed from rock, reggae, and American roots music.”
“Their approach moves beyond what they call “genre experiment,” instead treating music “as a living space where difference coexists, and connection endures,” as American Kahani notes.
No Borders
No Borders translates the ethos into a soundscape easily accessible to audiences, who may be completely unfamiliar with the lyrics. Meehan creatively bridges linguistic and cultural gaps for English-speaking listeners without diluting the music’s authenticity.
Ghost Peppers’ body of work includes personal stories and political narratives, held together by multilingual lyrics and cross-genre instrumentation. The band aims to bridge divides through music, expansive in sound and charged with emotional force. They push past slogans to inhabit a deeper, more sustained expression of collective awakening.
A nine-track meditation
Streaming on all major platforms, the Ghost Peppers introduce their debut album, produced by Sugar City Music, as a “nine-track meditation against imposed divisions — geographical, linguistic, cultural, musical, and ideological.”
The multilingual, richly textured album draws from Hindustani classical traditions, Bengali and Urdu lyrical poetry, Tagore reinterpretations, Americana songwriting, and jazz harmony. The project explores what can be shared across cultures, linking the past with the present.
The mesmerising and meditative song Qatra Qatra (Drop after Drop), co-written and recorded with the Lahore born physician and award-winning writer Usman Malik who also lives in Orlando. The song begins with Malik’s haunting chant followed by a duet between Ghosh and Malik. Meehan follows the lead into a rhythmic beat that snaps into life, with each word driving the song forward.
What makes this song truly special is Malik’s Urdu poetry and its beautiful confluence with classical taans and western swing jazz sections.
Meehan composed the haunting tune, and Ghosh, Meehan and Malik got together to write the song in a multilingual collaborative session in Orlando. Malik responded with the Urdu lyrics, to which Ghosh and Meehan added the English.
“Teardrops fall from the tree, flowing down the river to the sea, the river losing its existence, as soon as it meets the sea.”
These words form the English parts of the song that forms an image that invites listeners to see themselves as part of a big picture.
Reggae & Raga
Another song, Court of Love (Reggae Raga version), blends two distinctly diverse styles, as “complex, least expected music that creates an aura of coming together of divergence into a melody and groove that is reflective of a global harmony” as the band describes it to American Kahani.
The iconic poet and writer, Rabindranth Tagore appears in Ghost Peppers’ new album in MayaBono Redux, featuring a classic Tagore song translated into English.
Building musical bridges
The release comes at a time of heightened border politics globally, particularly in Southasia. By bringing together musicians and poets from India and Pakistan, using multiple Southasian languages, and fusing diverse musical traditions, Ghost Peppers offers what they describe as “musical bridge-building” that reconnects musical traditions predating the current political borders.
For a band of professors whose day jobs involve analyzing literature, cultural productions, and teaching critical thinking, Ghost Peppers represents a refreshing mode of engagement — one where mentorship meets music, and analysis embraces anthem.
The Ghost Peppers band collectively demonstrates that friendship and understanding are not abstract ideals but lived experiences, made more relevant in an era of recurring border violence and hostilities.
To quote the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, “Where words fail, music speaks.”
The music of Ghost Peppers speaks for itself.
Karachi-born Siraj Khan is a connoisseur of Southasian film music, who also manages the nonprofit OP Nayyar Memorial Trust, India, taking forward the work of the legendary Indian composer. A global finance and audit specialist by profession, he serves on the Board of several non-profits and also directs musical concerts in the US, Southasia, UK and UAE. Now based in Atlanta, he continues to work towards women’s empowerment, children and youth development and is a founder member of Southasia Peace Action Network, Sapan.
This story was first published in www.sapannews.com.
Ghost Peppers on stage at Will’s Pub. (L-R) Amrita Ghosh (vocals), Kevin Meehan (multi-instrumentalist), Eddy Jo Martinez (lead guitar), and James Campbell (drums/percussion) Photo: Arjun G. Shee
