Last week, the Daily News (thanks Dave) had a fascinating article about Deevani, the Hindi singer on the Daddy Yankee hit “Mirame”. Details about this singer were always shrouded in mystery, at least until she granted her first interview and cleared up the fact that Deevani (née Adalgisa Inés Rooney) was actually not Indian or even South Asian at all, but a Puerto Rico raised Dominican who fell in love with her first husband’s Bengali language and culture.

Normally I’d want to snark all over something like this. But I can’t. The woman is just too impressive. I think she’s single now, so let me pass on her biodata:

• She is a 31-year-old mother of 3 kids
• She has an MBA in finance
• She is the CEO of her brother’s (Luny, of superproducing duo Luny Tunes) company Mas Flow
• She taught herself eight languages – Chinese, Japanese, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Punjabi and Arabic. So with her native Spanish, and English, that makes ten.
• In an industry crammed with female “divas” and all the cliches that the term engenders, she is refreshingly comfortable presenting a low-key, domestic image:

  “I’ve just written this song for [new artist] Nicolle,” she says, passing her iPod across the table. “The melody came to me when I was dusting my house.”

Ughhhrrr…on most mornings, I’m lucky if I can find a pair of black tights without holes, and leave the house with my glasses still on my face. And she records hit songs while she’s dusting. F*ck! Maybe I need to step it up a little…

Rooney also appears to be a driving force behind the electrifying (should be if “Mirame” was just a teaser) Bhangra-Reggaeton fusion known as Bhangraton:

It was not long before the CEO of Mas Flow Inc. put out a call to Rishi for a potential collaboration. “Since Luny Tunes has a strong-hold on the Latino audience and we have the Asian audience on lock, it just made sense for use to come together,” stated Jay Sean in a recent interview with Reggaetonline.net at Mas Flow Studios. link

So far, the album’s not out yet, but Tigerstyle’s done a few reggaeton remixes (see here) so the idea’s catching.

While I can understand why mashing musical forms would be objectionable to purists, I don’t think this is a form of musical tourism akin to the ABC Carpet & Home shenanigans that grated so badly on (most of) our nerves. Despite her unforgivable fondness for Celine Dion, Deevani/Rooney explains herself quite well:

How’d you pick up all those languages? I basically created my own system to learn a language. All I have to do is, first of all, go to the [record] store. I ask somebody, ”What do you think would be the best singer right now? Pop, something that’s not going to bore me.” And I get their music in that language. In French, for example, I bought the entire French album by Celine Dion. She’s one of my favorites. And I learned all the songs. That’s how I start. I don’t learn ”How are you?” and ”How do you do?” and the colors and the days of the week. That’s not my way.

The parts you sing on ”Mirame” and ”Flow Natural” are both taken from Bollywood movies. How’d you first get into that genre? I am a Bollywood maniac! When I married my ex-husband, he introduced me to Bollywood. I needed that, to learn his language. So I got the Bengali tapes, the soap operas, which are very big in Bangladesh. And then I went to Jackson Heights [in Queens, N.Y.] one day, and I see all these movies. I think I bought 300 the first time.

Has everyone embraced the direction you’ve taken with your singing? A lot of people comment. Some people are like, ”Wow, that’s great that you know all those languages, and that’s great that you sing in Hindi, but does that mean you’re forgetting your Dominican roots?” It’s not. I actually think I’m taking my being Latino to a whole new level. I’m showing people that we can really do whatever we want, not only as a Latino person but as a woman.

Have you seen the influence going the other way, from reggaeton to the rest of the world? All my Indian friends tell me, ”Now I find myself hearing reggaeton, and now I listen to bachata, and oh my God, what a beautiful music it is! And now I go online and I look up the Dominican Republic.” People from Asia are starting to be interested in my little island out here in the Caribbean. I think that’s awesome. I don’t want to be a star, but if I can do something and if I can make these people look to other places on the map, I think that’s something worthwhile.link