Yesterday I was going to change up my commute to pass by a bookstore, so that I could check out Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling. Tweeps and blogs like SNL, Vulture, Splitsider and ShelfLife were agog over the cuteness of her floral, pink-sweatered, wry-mouthed book cover. Given her writing background and popularity as a tweeter, I imagined that physically flipping through a copy would offer some kind of quirky comedy contact high. Continue reading
Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment
Don’t Be a Hater Says Outsourced Writer
Will Outsourced, the NBC TV comedy set in a Mumbai call center and cast with more desi actors than Hollywood can shake a feather at, come back for another season? That’s the question up in the air for the moment. Geetika Tandon Lizardi makes her case for the show by preaching to the unconverted–people who think Outsourced is offensive, racist or condescending–in her LA Times article.
Lizardi says she’s one of the “five South Asian writers on the show telling stories that often come straight from our personal experiences.” Her credentials include living in Mumbai where she helped her husband run a call center, and she shares a couple of examples of those straight-from-personal-experience story lines. Continue reading
Penn Masala Leaks “Heartless/Kabhi Kabhi” from Panoramic
I’ve been consistently impressed with Penn Masala, University’s of Pennsylvania all-male a cappella group. Instead of sitting on the laurels of their success as the nation’s first South Asian a cappella group, they keep training the next generation of students to continue the Penn Masala tradition. While other collegiate South Asian a capella groups have started and fizzled out, Penn Masala has continued producing fresh, innovative albums. So obviously, I’m super excited about Panoramic, their seventh studio album, which comes out this month. Today the group released “Heartless/Kabhi Kabhi,” a song from Panoramic, on a student blog. Enjoy, mutineers! And while you’re at it, tell me a few of your favorite South Asian a capella groups. Is it the University of Michigan’s Maize Mirchi? Stanford’s Raagapella?Northwestern’s Brown Sugar? I need some new music.
Asian Am Filum Festiwal
This weekend in the Bay Area is the 29th Annual San Francisco Asian American Film Festival hosted by the Center for Asian American Media I was debating going but thought to myself, “Nah…they’re probably only going to have East Asian American films featured and will completely ignore the South Asian American films…so why bother.” Then, I found this video on YouTube.
Well. I’ve been convinced. Now I have to go. A parody of the King’s Speech, the above clip features friends Pia Shah, Sunil Malhotra, and my buddy Rasika Mathur. And of course I’ll be at the film festival – The Taqwacores Motion Picture is screening, finally, in the Bay Area.
I was curious. What are these films on the list that called for Pia, Rasika and Sunil to create the above video? These are the South Asian-ish featured filums at this year’s festiwal:
From the Gala Presentations we have Upaj and the sequel to East is East, the new movie out of the UK West is West.
Under Special Presentations we have the classic Bend It Like Beckham and the abysmal It’s a Wonderful Afterlife. Continue reading
Ras Ceylon Brings a Fire
He has dreadlocks. He’s a Rasta. He just came back from recording in Jamaica. He comes straight outta Oakland with a home base in So Cal. And he’s got Sri Lankan blood pumping through his veins. I’ve interviewed Ras Ceylon before here at Sepia Mutiny, and lucky for you, Ras Ceylon just dropped a mixtape street album last week. Titled Gideon.Force Vol.1 (named after Haile Selassie’s Ethiopian army), the album is fantastic anthology of Ras Ceylon’s musical work over the past few years.
Drawing on his Sri Lankan roots and Rastafarian faith, Ras Ceylon brings a unique sound intertwining a revolutionary message with head nodding beats. Gideon.Force Vol.1 is a mixtape, compiling collaborations with various emcees and producers from Oakland to L.A. to New York to Jamaica. The album features major artists such as Munga Honorable (Jamaica), Shabaam Sahdeeq (NYC), Norris Man (Jamaica) and includes original remixes of collaborations with stic.man of Dead Prez and Tragedy Khadafi (NYC). True to mixtape nature, laced throughout the album are clips of Davey D. of Hard Knock Radio interviewing Ras Ceylon about his journey.[rasceylonblog]
Today’s #MusicMonday is the whole album – but if you have to make me choose one song off of this mixtape, it’d have to be The ?. Though you can order a pressed copy of his album online at Ras Ceylon’s website, if you go to his bandcamp you can download the entire album right now for “Pay What You Want.” Listen to it all below, but feel free to be generous and download the whole ting.
His tracks show a clear connection to his musical inspirations – Public Enemy and Bob Marley. The track 4 Aiyana Jones hits the listener hard as a revolutionary anthem with lyrics on the epidemic of senseless police brutality while his first single Aluta Continua (Struggle Goes On) has a strong island feel and dancehall undertones. Whether head bouncing beats to spreading the message of substance abuse with the song The Question or the spiritually produced song Jah Livez spreading the message of God living in the hearts of all, Ras Ceylon’s lyrics calls for repeat listens. [rasceylonblog] Continue reading
Tarun’s Beatitude
Today’s #MusicMonday is an electronic beat that has been on repeat on my iTunes this week and comes to you off of 22º of Beatitude, an album that drops tomorrow on March 1st. The album is Tarun Nayar’s first solo effort and is a compilation of music spanning a decade of sounds collected worldwide. Tarun has been a music maker for years, having traveled the world in the Canadian fusion troupe Delhi 2 Dublin as well as been a part of the music site Chaiwalla’s BOOMBox.
Breaking out of the dancefloor-driven format, Tarun’s aim was to record as many of the sounds as possible, live, without the use of sample libraries. Each of these songs tells a story, and each story is a chapter in the artist’s life.
22º of Beatitude will be released March 1, 2011 and will be complete with archival photos and videos that will accompany each track on the album and enhance the music into a dynamic visual experience.[tarunnayar]
The album itself is an eclectic electro mix fusing together the classic Indo-influences with a range of drum n bass, trip hop, and chill beats. A lot of the sounds are reflective of the Karsh Kale, Bally Sagoo, Talvin Singh era of sound from this past decade. But the song that I can’t get out of my head diverges from the rest of the album with a surprising B-more funk that feels like it was dropped in the middle of hot day in Rajasthan.
808s and Sheikh Sarai by TarunTspoon
Love it! It’s queued between Jai Paul and Rye Rye on my iTunes playlist now. To hear more songs off of the album visit Tarun’s SoundCloud, and for more info on the album which drops tomorrow, visit his website or his twitter @TarunTspoon. Continue reading
Nostaligia for Your Ears
I’m not really big on Bollywood/Bombay-ish/Filmi music, though I have a vague appreciation for the historical importance and the beats do fill me with that Desh pull. But that just may change with a new site just up on the interwebs and recently handed to me, thanks to an awesome find by GirishRaj. It was so delightfully mishthi, I just had to share on The Mutiny immediately.
A beautifully designed site, Bombay Production is the Desi version of Pandora, on really spicy achar. With visuals reminiscent of classic Bollywood posters, an easy to surf matrix layout and the ability to easily listen through songs throughout the eras, this site is sure to be a hit amongst all of you amateur Bollywood ethnomusicologist.
For over seven decades films have been the primary entertainment source in India, introducing us to great music through highly creative and talented singers, songwriters and composers. Our inspiration comes from this rich history and we hope to capture some of it’s magic to bring you an experience that is different and engaging.
Bombay Production is designed to simplify the listening experience with one click. We’ve gotten rid of clutter and through simplicity in design created different stations that capture the mood and the flavor of a particular decade, artist or genre. The stations are randomly placed with musical tracks that are carefully selected and meant to surprise and delight you. Our collection is small but slowly growing. As we continue to grow, along with our listeners, we will be adding more music as well as customization to the stations.[bombayproduction]
I think the site has a lot of potential with an amazing catalog of music that had previously only been on vinyl – I’d love to see it expand the musical genres to include the classic rock scenes of India, emerging hip-hop, and maybe a Chutney collection too. Excited to see where this site goes and who are the brains behind this musical experiment. Don’t forget to follow them on twitter too – @BOMProduction. What do you think? Continue reading
We Have Come a Long Way
Today South Asian Americans Leading Together is launching a year long narrative campaign ‘America4All.’ The campaign will be collecting and sharing stories from the South Asian community on reflections of the past ten years since September 11th. Cross posted below is my piece launching the campaign on the SAALT Spot blog. Please follow the blog to get the latest from the ‘America4All’ series.
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I used to tell this story. It was 2001 and I was living in D.C., 22 yrs old and miles away from my family in Los Angeles. It was just months after September 11th and as a Muslim South Asian woman, though I knew there would be repercussion for looking like the enemy, I was most worried about my family.
Sure enough, on a phone call with my mother she shared a story of how Homeland Security came to our house looking for my male cousin. My family had stopped going to the mosque, wore patriotic flag pins and got followed in unmarked vehicles. My mother said “it doesn’t matter that I’ve lived here for 30 years or that I have my citizenship. I will always be a second class citizen.”
Thus marked my oft told founding story of why I became a South Asian American activist.
Ten years since September 11th, 2001, I wonder, how much has really changed?
This is the story I tell when people ask me about South Asian American Voting Youth, an organization I founded in 2003 to organize young South Asian people around the country. I was young, naïve and invincible. I truly believed in the power of electoral politics and civic engagement and, most importantly, I believed we could swing political power in our favor when we vote. If we did that – the racial profiling, hate crimes and marginalization of our community would all just stop.
The organization has since dissolved and the state of the South Asian American community has evolved. For me, it has now gone beyond simply registering South Asian Americans to vote into a world of identity politics and includes documenting our narratives and building community at both the pop and politics level. Continue reading
Headless Horseman Races to Top
For #MusicMonday today I bring to you the Headless Horseman, an “adventure girl pop duo” coming at you from Brooklyn, New York. Though the band has only been around for the past six months, they have already been making quite the splash. Headless Horseman will be part of the Brownout with MTV Desi this Friday, sharing the stage with Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers and a bunch of other bands we’ve covered here on our site. If you are in NYC, I totally suggest you check it out.
The Headless Horseman duo consists of Conner O’Neill and Fareed Sajan, two guys with the same Halloween birthday who got together to put out some falsetto laced ethereal music. The vocals remind me of Mayer Hawthorne while the sound has a Beach House flavored clanginess. Take a listen:
Exclusive to Sepia Mutiny readers, you can download for FREE the track SH8KR RIGHT HERE 04 SH8KR.mp3 . I also asked Fareed Sajan a few question about his music, his life, his sound. Here is what he had to say.
Taz: How do you feel about your Brownout show this Friday with MTV Desi and sharing the stage with dynamite Desis like Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers, PO PO and Sunny Ali and the Kid?
Fareed: Really glad to have MTV Desi on board, of course like any ‘alternative’ listening teenager I paid attention to MTV in 90’s. Cool to partner up with them to do something different, and something that feels culturally relevant, at least for me. The bands featured are certainly relevant. Growing up going to the mosque, and mosque related social events, I used to fantasize what it would be like to perform at any social function for my fellow brown people. Like instead of Dandiya and a band playing Dandiya music, I’d imagine performing “Untitled 8” by Sigur Ros off the ( ) album, and I would wonder how people would react to something so ethereal and blissful and alien. Maybe this is the closest I will get?
T: What did you do to get Heems of Das Racist to take you under his wings and manage you?
F: Haha, I sent him an email with my music? Maybe I planted the idea a few times in his brain when we were both inebriated… But we went to College together, so it was sort of a no brainer. Continue reading
Shah Rukh whips his hair back and forth
Hamad and Farid, the two guys who created the Indian version of “Teach me how to Dougie“, are back with a new viral hit. This time they’ve mashed up the video for Chaiya Chaiya with Willow Smith’s ubiquitous single “Whip My Hair.” Enjoy!
(Via The Next Web) Continue reading