It seems a little anti-climactic to say it, but given how long we’ve been arguing talking about M.I.A. here, it probably needs to be addressed: M.I.A’s “Paper Planes” has been nominated for “Best Record of the Year.”

She’s up against Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, on a groundbreaking country music collaboration, and Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.” So she has no chance of winning (the Grammy’s usually favor established artists and veteran rock stars over rappers, even innovative rappers). Still, chica has come a very long way since she started out a few years ago.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to wish her and her fiancé the best for the child they’re expecting. There’s something profoundly humanizing and clarifying about becoming a parent, though it also changes how most people approach their work and career. (Whatever happens, I do hope that M.I.A. will show up on Noggin and do a song for Yo Gabba Gabba! like The Ting Tings recently did. Perhaps a child-friendly version of “Galang Galang”?)

Speaking of raising children, and on a somewhat more serious note, it seems worth saying that the story that moved me most this (terrible) past week was the story of the Indian ayah, Sandra Samuel, who risked getting shot by cocaine-snorting, steroids-injecting, Islamofascist psychos, to rescue little Moshe Holtzberg at Chabad House in Mumbai:

I was pleased to see that the Israeli government has given her a high honor for what she did. She deserves it. Continue reading →

My favorite boy band is back with a punk new edition.

“A South Asian mother’s worst nightmare,” The Kominas is a Boston-based Bollywood punk band. Band members range in age from 22 to 30 years old and are a hodgepodge of middle-class, frustrated but fun-loving musicians, chemists, journalists, college dropouts (and graduates) who are trying to find their place in society. [Wiretap]

Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay, The Kominas first full length EP dropped last month on CD Baby as well as on iTunes. I’ve been listening to the album on repeat while at the gym and have found myself jaw dropping on more than one occasion as the album took me on a lyrical journey intertwining Islam, politics, and profanity. The album is polished, with a clean sound and reflecting a range of punk sounds and complicated influences. Wild Nights reminds me of a NOFX album in composition — up beat crass punk while subliminally highlighting social and political complexities. But in The Kominas case, the added spice of intersectionality between Islam, American, Desi, South Asian, and punk rock.

I had previously introduced the The Kominas to the Mutiny, and Abhi blogged about a punk benefit concert that the halal punkers did for a Hindu temple. I like them, their music, and what they represent – they are a bunch of desi kids wreaking punk rock havoc internationally. Currently two band members are based in Lahore working on a new band, Noble Drew. For our Indian Mutiny, the guys plan on crossing the border to India for a punk rock blitz in New Delhi at the end of December, so be sure to check them out.

I sat down (virtually) with The Kominas band member Basim Usmani (a fellow blogger and SM reader) for a long talk about the album, what it’s like to be a Muslim punk, and the Taqwacores growing movement.

How would you describe The Kominas?

Like Madhuri’s belly during the Choli Ke Peechay Kya Hain video.

In a previous interview I did with your band mate Shahjehan, he mentioned that you guys met at the mosque and he didn’t grow up on punk rock. He said that you made him a mix CD called Punk 101. When and why did you start listening to punk? When did you start playing music?

It was 9th grade in this Suburb called Lexington – and high school was weird. I had an accent. I was unpopular. I wanted to go to big arena concerts all the time…but my parents thought they were a den of decadence. I was only allowed to attend local shows at VFWs and veteran halls, which were incidentally crust punk and d-beat shows. The first concert I saw was a band called CLASS ACTION, and the singer had the ‘charged’ liberty spikes. People were pogoing, stomping, circle pitting, and the charged singer let me get on the mic for a few songs. Suddenly I had cool friends, I cut class and took the train, I saw all-ages shows (most non-Punk shows are 21+ in Boston). I had friends who thought being foreign or unique was cool. I was no longer unpopular. I was legion.

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So by now everyone must have had the surreal experience of turning on commercial pop or hip hop radio over the past couple of months, only to hear M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” casually playing in between various mind-numbingly bad Pussycat Dolls and Rihanna tracks, as if it were perfectly normal to hear a song with lyrics like this:

Pirate skulls and bones
Sticks and stones and weed and bongs
Running when we hit ’em
Lethal poison through their system

No one on the corner has swagger like us
Hit me on my Burner prepaid wireless
We pack and deliver like UPS trucks
Already going hell just pumping that gas

“Paper planes” peaked this summer at #4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, which is truly remarkable for any piece of music that prominently features the phrase “third world democracy.”

We’ve had our debates about M.I.A. here over the years — including the most recent episode, with Cicatrix’s post on Delon Jayasingha’s remix, which tears apart M.I.A. for her appropriation of LTTE imagery, fairly or unfairly.

Whatever our thoughts on M.I.A. in general, I think we might all agree that the recent remixes of “Paper Planes” by mainstream rappers leave something to be desired. The one I’ve heard on hip hop radio in Philadelphia features Bun-B and Rich Boy:

Listening to this reminds me that, whatever her faults might be, I’d rather listen to M.I.A. than “Bun-B and Rich Boy,” any day. There’s also a Lil Wayne remix , which is so terrible to my ear that it makes the Bun-B and Rich Boy remix sound like a work of art. (What do people see in Lil Wayne, again?)

Not to be outdone, via Ultrabrown I learn that Jay-Z has gotten in on the remix game as well though not with “Paper Planes.” Rather, Jay-Z’s remix is of “Boys,” and someone has YouTubed it here. As usual with recent Jay-Z, it’s a cut above what his peers are doing. What do you think of it, or the various mainstream hip hop remixes of “Paper Planes”? Continue reading →

I recently came across some music on LA’s KCRW by Nicholas Giacomini who goes by the name “MC Yogi.” He’s got an eclectic backstory:

Inspired by artists like the Beastie Boys and Run DMC, he began writing and performing his own raps for friends at house parties. He spent most of his high school years at a group home for at-risk youth, and Hip hop culture provided both a soundtrack and a creative outlet during those turbulent teenage years. Then at age 18 he discovered yoga.

On a whim, he joined his father for a yoga and meditation intensive with a famous spiritual teacher from India. Deeply moved by this powerful experience, MC YOGI devoted himself to learning everything he could about the ancient discipline. He began studying the physical forms of yoga, as well as meditation, philosophy, and devotional chanting.

It was at a yoga teacher training program in San Francisco that he met and fell in love with his wife, Amanda. After there first trip to India, they opened Yoga Toes Studio in Point Reyes, California, where they currently reside.

By combining his knowledge of yoga with his love for hip hop music, MC YOGI creates an exciting new sound that brings the wisdom of yoga to a whole new generation of modern mystics and urban yogis. [Link]

I’m digging this. Given some of his subject matter it has the potential to come across as really cheesy but the dude rhymes with heart and without a hint of being self-conscious. Here MC Yogi raps about Gandhi to some kids (at a Yoga camp I think):

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There was a great story about a Pakistani fusion group, the Mekaal Hasan Band, on NPR this morning, the text of which is here. For starters, you might want to check out one of their songs on YouTube, “Huns Dhun”:

On their website, Mekaal Hasan Band says the following about the song and video above:

The video is a real life account of the mass evacuation of the Afghan Refugees who, according to the Afghan Repatriation Deadline, were supposed to leave the border areas of Pakistan for Afghanistan by 2005. Seen through the eyes of three young Afghani friends, the video traces their journey from the area of Bajaur, NWFP, Pakistan to the bordering hills of Afghanistan.

I knew about the Afghan refugees in Pakistan, but I didn’t know about their forced repatriation, and I haven’t heard much about how they’ve been doing in Afghanistan since this happened in 2005. (Does anyone have more information about this?)

In the NPR story, the part that I found most interesting is the story of how Mekaal Hasan first went from Lahore to Boston, to study at the Berklee College of Music, and then returned to Lahore, where he started the long, slow process of finding a way to be a rock musician in a non-rock oriented culture:

There wasn’t much opportunity to advance his craft in Lahore. So Hasan, like many of his peers, decided to leave Pakistan. He applied to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and got in.

“That jump was just insane,” Hasan says. “It’s like going to another planet and watching people play unbelievable stuff. I had never seen anyone play that way before. I would just listen to music all the time. That’s all I did. I never felt more at home than when I was in Boston, ’cause I was surrounded by so much great music and so many great musicians. I think all creative people need an environment to flourish in.”

But Hasan was on a student visa, and his parents bribed him to come home early by offering to build him a studio. In 1995, he returned to Lahore.

“For a while, a good two to three years, I was massively depressed and really angry, as well,” Hasan says. “I was like, ‘Why am I here? What am I doing here?’ Then you had to reconcile yourself to the fact that, ‘Well, hey, man, you’ve always lived here.’ I resolved to make the best of it, and in some ways, this turned out to be a good exercise in just practicing the concepts that I’d learned in music school.” (link)

Ok, so not everyone has parents that can build them their own music studio! But however it happened, what’s important is that he managed to make the transition back — and now Mekaal Hasan and his band are making some really impressive music, using classical and jazz fusion.

Incidentally, another video I liked is Rabba. Mekaal Hasan Band’s album, “Sampooran,” is available on ITunes; they’re about to go on a tour of India (no word on a tour of the U.S. yet…). Continue reading →

Not long ago, I was cajoled by my better half into coming out of DJ retirement for an Indian Independence day Bhangra party sponsored by NET-IP Philadelphia. It’s been about three years since I’ve DJed even a house party, and for two of those years we’ve been new parents, listening to a lot of “Wow wow, wubbzy!” on Noggin (an insidious little brain-hammer of a song), and not much in the way of desi dance music.

I’ve been trying to get back into it a bit these past couple of weeks (no more grousing, I promise!), and I have a preliminary playlist of old and new favorites. My main focus has been on hip hop-influenced Hindi and Punjabi music:

• “Right here right now” from Bluffmaster
• “Singh is Kinng” from Singh is Kinng (this song was panned by Mr. Cicatrix as a “hot mess,” but it makes my son nod his head and do a little bhangra motion with his wrist every time)
• “Uncha Lamba” remix by Dr Zeus, from Welcome 2 Da Club (original song from the movie Welcome)
• “Kiya Kiya” remix by Dr. Zeus, from the same album (Puran likes this one too, and cutely starts singing along to the repetitive chorus — “Kiya kiya, kya kiya, kya kiya hai sanam”)
• “Glassy” by Jazzy B/Sukshinder Shinda (not to be confused with Hard Kaur’s “Glassy” — a song that I’m a little tired of)
• “Pyaar Karke” from Pyaar ke Side Effects (can’t go wrong)
• “Teri Baaton Mein” by Raghav (a brilliant conjoining of a sweet Hindi love song to a well-known dancheall riddim)
• “Basement Bhangra Anthem”, by DJ Rekha (with Wyclef), off of the Basement Bhangra CD

What tracks am I missing? I will also probably play classic bhangra, and popular Bollywood tracks like “Bhool Bhulaiyya,” “Mauja hi Mauja,” “Ya Ali,” “Meter Down,” “Om Shanti Om,” “Soni de Nakhre” (“oh kaindi e, Pump up the jam!”), and “Pappu Can’t Dance,” but the above playlist is probably the music I’m most into right now.

Below the fold, a couple of technical things related to DJ software, for anyone who might be interested… and a little something extra. Continue reading →

As much as I love MIA’s music, explaining her politics has been one continuous migraine. Especially since I live in hipsterland, and all the kool kids wanted to know if I was related to a “freedom fighter” too when she first made a splash with Arular. She’s toned down the LTTE rhetoric recently and, heaven help me, I’m still a huge fan…but there’s a new Sri Lankan kid on the scene, and he’s determined to inject another perspective into the fray and take her down a peg or two.

“All she wanna do is [bang][bang][bang] and [ka-ching!] take your money” he raps over MIA’s “Paper Planes” instrumental while images of the aftermath of LTTE suicide bombs flash across the screen. (The images are as gruesome as one would expect, so please consider this a disclaimer.)

The video was released less than a week ago, and keeps getting yanked off YouTube by Universal Music Group (MIA’s record label). Go to CeylonRecords to see it if the embedded video above has been disabled. Continue reading →

Meet Giju John, 33. Born: Thiruvananthapuram, India. Lives: Silicon Valley. Employer: Intel. He’s an electical engineer who’s got his groove on.

Fascinated by the salsa dancers at night clubs in downtown San Jose, he started taking classes several nights a week. He was so good that his instructors, members of SalsaMania, a Bay Area dance group, invited him to join their professional team and compete in the US, Europe, and Mexico. This was back in 2001.

Today, John has a successful solo Hindi/salsa career. By way of the San Jose Mercury News:

John loved making microchips tick, but he loved his dancing, too. He remembered the Indian dance steps he learned as a boy. He noodled around, adding them to salsa steps and coming up with his own Hindi/salsa genre. He’s left Salsamania for a solo career. Yes, a Hindi/salsa solo career. Why not? John was in Silicon Valley – a place with a prominent Latino population and tens of thousands of Indians and Indo-Americans. He produced a CD, “Rang Rangeeli Yeh Duniya,” … It is a CD of Hindi language songs set to the pulse of salsa, cha-cha and rap. He shot a music video. He launched a start-up, Beyond Dreamz, to produce his music. And he continued to focus on the reliability of the next generation of Intel chips.

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