A few weeks back several news sites reported that the Grammy Awards next month will feature a performance by an Indian American pop singer (who I had never heard of) named Reggie Benjamin:
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Keep your eyes above the waist please. |
Pop singer Reggie Benjamin, the first Indian American to win a Hollywood deal, is all set to perform at the Grammy awards next month.
Benjamin, who has also filmed a music video in Hugh Heffner’s fabulous Playboy Mansion, said his success was a lucky coincidence, coming as it did with an increasing American interest in Bollywood.
“Suddenly, it is cool to be Indian,” Benjamin, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, told IANS.
To become a Hollywood pop singer was an unusual career choice for Benjamin who was studying to be a chemical engineer. His persistence paid off when he was signed on by music industry mogul Kerry Gordy. [Link]
Here is the thing though. I can’t find any mention of an impending Grammy performance by Benjamin, either at the Grammys website, or his own. Diligent readers, am I missing something? Is this some kind of scam? You can check out some of Benjamin’s music here.
What I do know however is that an Indian Buddhist monk named Ngawang Tashi Bapu is nominated for a Grammy in the ‘Best Traditional Music Category,’ and that the Grammy website backs it up:
Devotion his sole purpose, he chants for the ideal he reveres. And now this Buddhist lama’s divine melodies have transcended the walls of his monastery in the remote Dahung township of Arunachal Pradesh to bring peace to audiences far away in the West.
Ngawang Tashi Bapu, who has been nominated for a Grammy in the ‘Best Traditional Music Category’, says he is surprised. “But when it is fate, you cannot avert it,” he told The Indian Express over the telephone from Dahung. ”I consider myself lucky.”…Popularly known as Lama Tashi, the 38-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monk is based at the Centre for Himalayan Culture and Studies at Dahung, about 350 km from here…
Finding an eager reception in the US, the Lama’s chants are collected in Tibetan Master Chants, a CD produced by US-based author Jonathan Goldman, who has written the book, Healing Sounds. [Link]
I can’t help but wonder what the video would look like if Lama Tashi and not Benjamin had filmed his music video at the Playboy mansion.
