In Lounge-Mint, Rabbi Shergill talks about the wellspring of his music and the importance of language:
While the riffs of rock music inform his musical thought-he idolizes Bruce Springsteen - Rabbi Shergill’s music is essentially Punjabi. The rhythms and cadences of the Punjabi language, and folk and Sufi musical forms are reflected in his original compositions. He feels strongly about language as a vehicle for thought-the bastardization of the Punjabi language and its homogenization, brought about by mass culture, upsets him. “Homogenizing language is tantamount to homogenizing thought,” says the 33-year-old, adding that using his own language-a dialect of Punjabi spoken in the Majha region, that he was exposed to as a child-is for him a form of protest against the homogenization of the beautiful, rich and diverse Punjabi language. Language, then, is a focal point in understanding and appreciating Shergill’s music.
As the bhangra and Bollywood of India’s urban middle class drown out rural folk music, a new exhibition in London beats the tablas for a dying art. From The Guardian:
You expect ancestor worship to be an exotic thing, and the Sora tribespeople of eastern India don’t disappoint. There are the men in red headdresses blowing crescent-shaped horns to summon the dead, the priestess clutching an axe for animal sacrifice. All is as promised by National Geographic. What you aren’t prepared for, however, is heathenism’s homely side.
The Sora’s solemn gesture of reverence, for instance, is to unfurl a sturdy black brolly straight out of 60s Whitehall. While the shamaness enters a trance, children cluster around, still in their school uniforms. And before villagers dance with the spirits of long-gone relatives, they change into their best outfits.
On the eve of his last ever gig in Europe, sitar giant Ravi Shankar tells John O’Mahony of The Guardian why the 60s got India wrong, how his daughters give him hope - and why Hendrix annoyed him:
If Ravi Shankar has one abiding memory of the Monterey pop festival - which took place in the heady summer of 1967, at the height of his notoriety as the sitar-playing guru to the stars - it is of unfortunate scheduling. Slated to appear before him were Jefferson Airplane, a band whose blues-inflected barrage of pulsating sound couldn’t have clashed more with his own karmic composure. And right after him was one Jimi Hendrix, then still a relative unknown, but with a growing reputation for ferocious, turbo-charged guitar solos.
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan speaks to Anuj Kumar in The Hindu on his uncle, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, composing for Bollywood and Sufi music
He sings up to his name. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s voice provides the relief we need in this frenzied world. “Sukoon is the word”, he insists, as he settles for the interview. Sufi music is making waves, but the genre is being interpre ted in myriad ways. What is Sufi: the person, the voice, the verse or the music? “I believe it is the thought and the style. A sufi is a person who doesn’t believe in any particular religion and loves humanity. That’s why he is closer to Allah.” Can a voice be Sufi? “Of course, the voice which has masoomiyat...the innocence that connects you to the One above.”
He clarifies what he sings in Bollywood is not always Sufi. “‘Laagi Tumse Man Ki Lagan’ is Sufi while ‘Naina Das Lenge’ is not, though both of them have been used to suit the plot of the film.”
Rolling Stone makes its India debut with five different covers: Anoushka Shankar (seen here), Led Zeppelin, Jay-Z, Amy Winehouse and Bruce Springsteen.Priced at Rs 100 and edited by N Radhakrishnan of Man’s World (now MW), the magazine has a reasonably strong India angle (news clips on Rabbi Shergill, Shruti Haasan and Talvin). For a look at all five of the inaugural mag’s cover versions click here – word of warning: the site is ‘under construction’.
Foreign Policyon the Icelandic pop singer’s rallying cry at a concert in Shanghai
Give Björk points for chutzpah. At the end of her song, “Declare Independence,” the iconoclastic Icelandic pop singer shouted, “Tibet! Tibet!” The incident would be unremarkable were she not in Shanghai at the time. Naturally, her outburst wasn’t reported in China’s rigidly state-controlled press, but it has stirred up nationalist anger online. And it made the closing moments of her concert a little awkward.
“The atmosphere was very strange, uncomfortable compared to the rest of the concert,” said audience member Stephen Gow, a British teacher who lives in Shanghai. People didn’t boo, Gow said, but they left the Shanghai International Gymnastic Center hurriedly.
Last month 31-year-old Siddharth Khosla and his band, Goldspot (yesss, named after the drink!) made their India debut at the One Tree Festival in Mumbai. The LA band led by an Indian singer (aka Sid) is inspired both by Coldplay and Kishore Kumar and is candid about its Bollywood influence. Check out their hit Friday in this Youtube video:
London-based DJ and multi-instrumentalist Bisha has just released her debut album: Nights at the Circus. Born to Bengali parents and recently turned 24, Bisha is the talk of the underground music scene for her debut single, Never Seen Your Face. [See her live performance below] She was born in UK to a musical family; her mother is still an EMI signed artist. She has studied sitar at The Ravi Shankar School for Music.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, often known simply as “Maharishi” or “The Maharishi,” achieved world renown as the Indian guru who inspired the Beatles and was said to have persuaded them to give up drugs. He has died has died at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop, and is believed to have been around 90.
In the summer of 1967, the year of Flower Power and Sergeant Pepper, he made headlines when the four Beatles, with their wives and girlfriends, as well as Mick Jagger, Jane Asher and Marianne Faithful, followed the whiskered Swami from London to Bangor in Wales to sit very publicly at his feet imbibing his message of universal love and peace. The Beatles announced that they had decided to abandon LSD: “We think we’re finding new ways of getting there.”
My thanks to Sohail Hashmi for sending this classic interview of Kishore Kumar by Pritish Nandy, conducted circa 1985 and published in the Illustrated Weekly of India
Pritish Nandy: I understand you are quitting Bombay and going away to Khandwa…
Kishore Kumar: Who can live in this stupid, friendless city where everyone seeks to exploit you every moment of the day? Can you trust anyone out here? Is anyone trustworthy? Is anyone a friend you can count on? I am
determined to get out of this futile rat race and live as I’ve always wanted to. In my native Khandwa, the land of my forefathers. Who wants
to die in this ugly city?
Mangala Ramamoorthy talks to Anoushka Shankar about Breathing Under Water, her new album with Karsh Kale
Her glamorous image precedes her music. Her new look and her social life make news more often than her music but artiste Anoushka Shankar insists that it is the latter that matter to her.
“Glamour is something very alien to me. It is not something I want to express but what people perceive of me. It is not whether I want to keep this image separate from my music but the fact is that it is separate. I am just the way I am,” she says in a matter-of-fact manner. Read the rest of this entry »
While the riffs of rock music inform his musical thought-he idolizes Bruce Springsteen - Rabbi Shergill’s music is essentially Punjabi. The rhythms and cadences of the Punjabi language, and folk and Sufi musical forms are reflected in his original compositions. He feels strongly about language as a vehicle for thought-the bastardization of the Punjabi language and its homogenization, brought about by mass culture, upsets him. “Homogenizing language is tantamount to homogenizing thought,” says the 33-year-old, adding that using his own language-a dialect of Punjabi spoken in the Majha region, that he was exposed to as a child-is for him a form of protest against the homogenization of the beautiful, rich and diverse Punjabi language. Language, then, is a focal point in understanding and appreciating Shergill’s music.
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