Category Archives: Community

Slumgod Mandeep Sethi Drops the Boom Bap Rap

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Poor Peoples Planet.png This past Friday, Bay Area Sikh-American hip-hop lyricist Mandeep Sethi dropped his latest album Poor Peoples Planet, a concept album produced by X9 of Xitanos Matematikos that weaves in the teaching Jiddu Krishnamurti, Punjabi gypsy origins, and classical elements of hip hop. At only 22 years old, Mandeep has already developed a strong base of followers having appeared on stage with artists such as Ziggy Marley and Dead Prez and having jumped on the mic with folks I’ve written about before such as Humble the Poet, Sikh Knowledge and Ras Ceylon. You can get Poor Peoples Planet on iTunes later this week and if you visit Mandeep’s BandCamp you can download the album now. Still not sure? Check out the single below Moving Swiftly, Guerrilla Tactics.

[Moving Swiftly::][GuerillaTactics][POORPEOPLESPLANET by mandeep.sethi.music

Full disclosure, I’ve been helping get the word out for Poor Peoples Planet and am excited to support a young Desi American whose lyrics are smart, conscious, and inspired by the hyphenated identity. But in the course of hanging out with Mandeep this week, I was really impressed to find out that he is one of the co-founders of Slumgods. Based in India, Slumgods was founded in 2010 as the first B-Boy collective in India bringing together emcees, breakers, artists of India and America. The Slumgods are bringing it hard and fresh using the the five elements of hip hop as a tool of empowerment for the slum youth in the Dharavi slums with a community center called Tiny Drops Hip Hop Center.

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Ten minutes of your time could save her life

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A Sonia.jpg

We’ve posted about this so many times at SM and the sad tips and pleas for help keep coming– and that means we haven’t done enough, as a people. There aren’t enough Desis in the national bone marrow registry and because of that sad reality, when my Uncle or your favorite college prankster is diagnosed with a life-stealing ailment, the amount of hope they are given by someone in a white coat is tiny.

Without other Desis in the system, the chances for a match grown narrower and narrower; I know at one point, a non-trivial number of our readers were getting swabbed for Vinay. Thank you for that. You are still in the system. Since then, new people have joined the Sepia Mutiny community and it is my flickering, idealistic hope that one of you is a match for Sonia.

If you are in D.C., please consider going to Sri Shiva Vishnu Temple tomorrow between 11am and 3pm, to get swabbed for Sonia and everyone like her. It only takes a moment and you, you could be the one who saves a life. Please. Continue reading →

Top Fifteen of 2010

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F5D864A1-4E0E-D007-2655-AFBD3F49CEE8wallpaper.jpg What happened this year? Will it be known as the year that Julian Assange brought down the Western World? A year rocked by such high unemployment that it allowed “creative types” like Das Racist, The Kominas and Sunny Ali and the Kid the time to put out new albums? Will 2010 be known as the year of Sarah Palin’s Nikki Haley? Or is it the year of Joel Stein-ism? Let’s take a look. Continue reading →

The Absolutely Sick Sikh Knowledge

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On his right forearm he has this tattoo. I didn’t recognize it at first – a four by four of solid black squares. “It’s the squares to my drum pad,” Sikh Knowledge said, pointing casually to his arm. It made sense – he was a reggae dancehall musician that loved to produce music. You may not know who he is but you will and I guarantee you’ve heard his beats. His tunes are the base music for many of the up and coming hip hop Desi artists of the day – Humble the Poet, Mandeep Sethi, and Hoodini have all used tracks produced by him.

Hailing from Montreal and well known on the Canuck Desi scene, Sikh Knowledge made his way to California for a mini-tour in December, hitting up cities all along the coast. I met him in Sacramento, where he was doing a show with his Sikh hip-hop posse at the Sol Collective. The show was live and it was intense to see a whole scene of brown underground hip hop heads. I sat down with Sikh Knowledge aka Kanwar Anit Singh Saini before he jumped on the mic at the Sacramento show. Here’s what he had to say.

Sikh Knowledge got his start young, singing at the temple when he was a child. But he got into hip-hop also at a young age. “I was one of those kids that would beat box going to school… I was the only grade 3 kid bringing mixed tapes to school. I lost Bobby Brown’s “Every Little Step” on the playground and that’s when I cried at school.” It was when he heard the Sound Bwoy Burill track in 1994 that he knew he was going to make music his life.

But what really made an impression on me was Sikh Knowledge’s confidence in pursuing his life. At the age of 20, he decided to stop being what other people wanted him to be, dropped out of engineering school and re-started honestly. “I dropped out, came out, and rearranged my whole life,” he stated. “I reapplied and did my undergraduate degree in music with a minor in linguistics. It was the happiest time of my life. I felt good about the decisions that I made.” He’s currently pursuing his Master degree in speech language pathology while having the dual career of mixing some of the ill-est beats in North America. Continue reading →

Trigger Happy Sub Swara

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A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending one of the most bass booming dance frenzy inducing parties I’ve been to since moving to the Bay area. Held at the dope new venue Public Works, it was a record release party for Trigger the latest out of the electronic/hip hop/dubstep/desi beat making duo, Sub Swara. Originating from a NYC club night, Dhruva Ganesan and Dave Sharma have turned Sub Swara into an electronic dubstep music touring machine. Performing that night were also San Francisco’s own Surya Dub DJs Kush Arora, Maneesh the Twister, Jimmy Love and DJ Amar. Almost all of these folks are tied in with the sound barrier breaking Dhamaal Soundsystem.

But enough about the party that you missed. Let me give you something to listen to on this Music Monday. Check out the Triggers Mixtape Volume 2, opening up with a track co-writ by Dead Prez. That’s right, it’s a Dead Prez meets Sub Swara – an unlikely combo but somehow it works. Also check out minute 9.00 for the Ceelo remix, my personal fave.

Sub Swara — Triggers Mixtape Vol 2 by Sub Swara

The above Mixtape is the second in what I can only imagine to be a series – bookmark the Sub Swara soundcloud page to keep track of other mixes that may be coming from their crew. Just in case you were the OG type, below you can listen to Trigger in it’s entirety and original form.

I’ve never been a huge fan of electronic music (though I did attend my fair share of raves in my college days) but I find the music coming out of Sub Swara and their associated DJ crew different. There is more bass, more beats, amazing obscure dancehall and reggae finds that blend seamlessly with bhangra and deep bass beats. I’m a big fan of dubstep and love how this team of musicians can spin to take listeners on an audio adventure.

I’m sure Sub Swara will be doing a show near you very soon (looks like CT, NY and CO are in luck). Keep your eye on their website, and their twitter to keep posted on when the bass goes boom. Continue reading →

Greenspotting: Race and Ethnicity maps of the U.S.

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The blogosphere has been buzzing this week over a…Flickr set with ten year old information. And with good reason. Eric Fisher’s use of ten year old census data helps us visualize the segregation we already know exists in our major cities:

[Eric Fisher’s] taken a look at the way that the residents of major American cities assort themselves. Inspired by Bill Rankin’s map of Chicago’s racial and ethnic divides, he took census data from the year 2000 to see how other cities stacked up in terms of how citizens identify themselves and where they live.

Each dot in the plot above represents 25 people. The red-green colorblind among you may see a nearly monochrome map since those two colors represent self-identified whites and Asians. The cluster of blue dots … represent African-Americans. In and of themselves, the findings are hardly shocking, but since it’s Flickr, the map has already become interactive as users chime in with notes and comments to explain the city’s patterns. Even if you aren’t a sucker for information graphics, there’s something interesting in comparing and contrasting our city with the others in the photoset. [Link]

Here is the map of my area in Los Angeles. I make up the green right where the Red, Blue, and Orange intersect on the westside:

Use the search bar on Eric’s page to look for your city. I thought the picture of DC showed one of the clearest divides. Can’t wait to see how the demographics change when he uses 2010 data.

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Peacemakers: London Desis & Cricket Fans

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peace.symbol.jpgCan online communication help us achieve world peace? The Economist seems to think it’s unlikely in A cyber-house divided. But London desis and cricket fans, it turns out, are two groups who are working toward that goal by building bridges across the divisions.

With its global reach and relative freedom, the internet could be a great opportunity for people separated by war, religion, color, class or other borders to connect and learn about each other’s common interests and concerns. But reality, as described by The Economist, is different: “Research suggests that the internet is not so radical. People are online what they are offline: divided, and slow to build bridges.” Continue reading →

Interview w/ Reshma Saujani at Netroots

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The September 14th Democratic Primary in New York City could be the make or break date for Reshma Saujani’s bid for Congress. And of course, what is the biggest issue at the polls these days? The few-blocks-away-from-Ground Zero-Islamic-community-center.

There’s nothing smooth about the infighting for the Congressional seat from the so-called “Silk Stocking District” on the Upper East side, where 18-year Democratic incumbent Rep. Carolyn Maloney, 64, is facing a primary election challenge from upstart Reshma Saujani, 34, an eight-year resident of the city who is making her first bid for elected office.

the two both support the right of Muslims to build a mosque on Park Place, two blocks from Ground Zero (though Saujani, an American-born Hindu whose parents were born in India and later became refugees from Idi Amin’s Uganda, snipes that Maloney has been all-but-silent about her support for the mosque.)[nydailynews]

I had the chance to meet up with Reshma at Netroots Nation and asked her some questions about what it was like to run, her issues, and her fellow Desi candidates. Here’s what she had to say.

Candidate campaigns are no easy game, between the posturing and pandering and bickering. I was hesitant about Reshma’s bid after I found the following video earlier this year where she talks about being pro Netanyahu’s settlement plan in Israel. It seemed an awful lot like pandering for votes to me. But her support of New York City Muslims in this time of Islamaphobia is to be commended, both with the support of Park 51 as well as speaking out on the slashing of a Muslim NYC cab driver. After the Ami Bera fiasco of last week, I want to highlight how particularly important it is for people, ESPECIALLY CANDIDATES, to stand firm for what they believe. I commend Reshma for taking a stand, despite the risk of losing votes. And I challenge all other candidates to do the same. Continue reading →

The people behind a polarized debate

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Cross-posted on rawtheekuh.tumblr.com.

As an excited member of the American University class of 2014, I was ecstatic that the President of the United States had chosen MY future alma mater to discuss an issue that is both highly personal and politically polarizing: immigration.  Since I have a talent for stating the obvious, I will say that I simply would not be here without my parents’ fateful decision to leave their pyaare watan. I feel you, Mr. President – we’re both the children of immigrants. Indeed, the act of migration is an experience that bonds us.

 

Watching Dana Bash make googly eyes at the CNN cameras and tell the world how “angry” the Latino community is about the lack of comprehensive reform makes ME angry. Last time I checked, Latinos weren’t the only immigrants affected in this increasingly contentious debate . Why limit the discussion to just the impact on the Latino community? I’m from Houston where we have a substantial number of immigrants, legal and otherwise, Latino and non-Latino. The immigration debate hits close to home for me, not only as a Texan and a young second-generation American, but as someone who has seen her own friends and family members put through the ringer trying to find work, live an honest life, and stay out of trouble to achieve their version of the American Dream.
 
My parents, my sister, the Bhutanese Nepali refugees I met through my summer internship, the friendly Latinos who come up to my father at Fiesta and start speaking Spanish: all immigrants. They all represent sides of the immigration issue that I have experienced but that the American media has failed to show. Though each immigrant community has distinct challenges, they also have similar desires: independence, freedom, & security. I thought it was difficult for my family members, skilled & English speaking, to deal with the INS and wait to become citizens. I realized that they had it easy compared to many. What if you’re like one of the Bhutanese boys I met, 17 and translating between Nepali and English for your parents, relying on charities and social workers to help you fill out your green card application?
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Indivisibly Yours: Part II

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Last week you saw a Part I posting on Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry, an introduction to this first-of-its-kind collection of poetry and its contributing poets. In this second part, Indivisible’s editors (all three of them!) respond to a few questions about poetry, the process of bringing the anthology together, it’s eye-catching cover image and other topics.

Neelanjana Banerjee, Summi Kaipa and Pireeni Sundaralingam are not only the editors of Indivisible. Banerjee is a journalist, fiction writer, and blogger/editor with Hyphen magazine; Kaipa is a literary curator, psychologist, and editor of a literary magazine; Sundaralingam is a playwright, literary judge, and scientist. They are also poets in their own right. Read on for more about them and the process of bringing Indivisible together.

indivisible.editors.jpg Continue reading →