Kennedy School Americana

Like many graduate students at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Naseem S. Khuri HKS ‘08 had long thought he wanted to effect positive change in the world. But with “Dust Windows,” the debut album from his band Kingsley Flood, Khuri proves to have strayed markedly from the typical Harvard government student’s route of contributing to society. “Dust Windows,” which will be released at the Middle East Club on Saturday, represents both the unconventional turn Khuri has taken with his career and the remarkable continuity of purpose with which he has brought his first major musical endeavor to bear.

Before Khuri had ever seriously considered fronting a band, he thought he would contribute to his community in a more traditional manner. After receiving his graduate degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School, Khuri became the executive director of Harvard’s Dubai Initiative, a partnership between the Kennedy School and the Dubai School of Government designed to foster the latter’s development.

But, feeling isolated from the very communities he wanted to help, Khuri soon became disillusioned. “I came out of school really wanting to make a large impact,” he says, “and I wasn’t satisfied with the work I was doing. I was missing out on human connection.”

From there, Khuri’s drive to achieve sowed the seeds of the nascent Kingsley Flood. Khuri, who had been playing guitar and writing songs since high school, says he asked then-roommate Nick M. Balkin to “pick up a bass and just see what happened.” Luckily, they clicked musically, Khuri says. A series of fortuitous events, he adds, such as stumbling upon their future drummer in a bar, led them to the other three members of the current band.

The self-described “post-Americana” group is a logical extension of his experience at the Kennedy School, Khuri explains. “The Kennedy School did a great job of urging me to contribute,” he says. “But I found that working in a bureaucracy turned out not to be the best way for me to achieve that. I wanted to connect on a more direct level, and I found that the best way I could do so was by playing music. If having that one-on-one connection means just playing Saturday night gigs, so be it.”

Khuri’s passion for issues confronting his community and the larger world manifests itself in his lyrics, says the band’s guitarist, George B. Hall. “Naseem is a deep writer,” says Hall, “and he brings so many different moods and feelings to the songs.” Additionally, Hall adds, Khuri’s talent allows him to write more about universal experiences than explicit political problems. “Though you could interpret his lyrics politically, he has a good sense not to be overt, and that takes much more skill than merely stating the problems out there,” Hall says.

As Khuri himself states, “The album is based on how various characters in a community navigate the world of haves and have-nots. What’s most important to me is that I’m honest about the experiences of ordinary people.” For example, the song “Roll The Dice,” according to Khuri, is about the naiveté with which middle- and upper-class people often approach working with the poor. The song narrates from the perspective of one such well-intentioned character, the lyrics revealing his cursory assumptions about a life of which he actually knows little: “I always carry quarters for upside-down hats / ...Cuz I know it ain’t so pretty man, it ain’t so safe and so clean / And I do believe I’ve seen ‘em bleed in Time Magazine.”

Aside from fronting the band, Khuri still maintains a day job in Washington, D.C., utilizing his Harvard education as a consultant for conflict management and negotiations training. But he says that while he remains open to whatever possibilities lie ahead in his future international relations career, his heart currently lies with the band. “I’ve found that I complete my role in the community best by making music,” he says. “The Kennedy School did a great job of enhancing my awareness, and it’s given me the drive to really do something.” If all goes as planned, he says, “The band will become my way of living for the greater good.”