Category Archives: Video

Shanti Outta Brooklyn

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With only a couple of Mondays left for a #MusicMonday, I know I had to make this one a song that will stick in your head for a while.

The song is by an MC I’m really surprised hasn’t been covered by the Mutiny before. Brooklyn Shanti, a Bengali DJ coming outta…. well … Brooklyn,  I heard about via Mandeep Sethi, my connection to all the latest in Desi hip-hop. Brooklyn Shanti is ridiculously prolific – his website and his bandcamp have tons of songs available for download and he’ll be coming out with an album in the next couple of months. Of course, I have an affinity for all things Bengali, and I absolutely instantly fell in love when I heard his Bangla lyric-ed song Rani, Rani.

His theme song’s not so bad either. Keep an eye on this guy – Brooklyn Shanti’s going to be going far with these skills.

Check out his bandcamp discography – if you like the above songs, I’m sure you’ll like what else he has. You can download his full album from June 2011 for free right here: Brookylin Circa 2012

I hope you’ve enjoyed the #MusicMonday’s at Sepia Mutiny these past couple of years – I started them because I wanted to have some content to provide for you on a weekly basis. After a while though, it became more of a scavenger hunt and a game to find the songs I would actually listen to on my iPod. I’ve found and befriended many of the artists profiled on these pages – and I’m hoping that my fantastical dream of Alterna-Desi Music Fest on the So Cal desert of Bombay Beach with these bands will happen some day. Some day…

Joe Biden imitates Indian accent during NH speech

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Vice President Joe Biden (who I like to think of as America’s wacky, slightly off-color Uncle Joe) briefly imitated an Indian accent while giving a speech in New Hampshire on Thursday.

As longtime readers know, this isn’t the first time Biden’s gotten into hot water with the desi community. Back in 2006, the then-Senator noted that “You cannot go into a Dunkin Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

Watch the video of yesterday’s speech below. The imitation begins at 00:09 and ends rather abruptly. As one Buzzfeed commenter noted, “It’s like halfway through the impression he thought, “Oh sh–, better not follow through with this one.”

A quick look at Lahore

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After completing school at the University of North Carolina, Nushmia Khan spent time traveling abroad. In Lahore, Pakistan, the recent grad with a background in multimedia journalism visited family and took over 5,000 photos. She shares some of them in a short film called “Time in Lahore.”

The music is by Basheer & The Pied Pipers. Visit Nushmia.net for more about Khan and her trip to Pakistan (“Leaving Pindi is always hard” and “It’s a man’s world”).

Listen To Your Mother

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The Sh** People Say meme began with a simple Sh** Girls Say, which frankly, I didn’t bother to watch. Then other versions began popping up. I finally clicked play when I saw Sh** Sri Lankan Mothers Say via approximately a bajillion Sri Lankan people who were highly amused:

I will helpfully subtitle this for you.

Amma: Eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat EAT

Translation: I love you

Amma: [In this scenario] you will die; [in that scenario] you will die

Translation: If anything ever happened to you I don’t know what I’d do

Amma: If you wind up in hospital I’m not coming!

Translation: I would be there in a hot minute

The HI magazine is a nice touch. Also, since I saw this on FB, I hereby invent Sri Lankan Social Media Amma. “This one is carrying on with that one with the poking and the friending and that fellow! Have you used the Sri Lankan Foods application? Do you think this Facebook wall is your social media hotel for you to post and go as you please?”

Very good for you. You go! [update: Sh** Sri Lankan Fathers Say after jump] Continue reading →

The One Stop Jihadi Superstore

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With all this controversy around the One Stop Jihadi Superstore aka Lowes, (as Aasif Mandvi oh so eloquently put it in this Daily Show bit) and their caving to a Christian fringe extremist organization (as Phillygrrl blogged about here), it was only a matter of time before the ads that were pulled off air for the TLC show All American-Muslim took the viral airwaves. Exclusively for Sepia Mutiny mutineers, we were able dig up one of these lost commercials starring former Outsourced stars Rizwan Manji & Parvesh Cheena.

http://youtu.be/qQhls5PEmeQ

As the token Muslim mutineer, I will attest, my folks also have holiday lights up at their house, I buy candy canes and we even mail out holiday cards. This parody ain’t so far from the truth. Happy holidays, from our mutiny to yours!!

P.S – Continue to boycott, sign petitions and write letters to Lowes – it’s been a week and they still haven’t come up with an acceptable response. And while you are at, boycott the website Kayak.com too for their backhanded apology for pulling their ads off the show. But do support Russel Simmons and all his business ventures for buying ad space when no other corporations were willing to.

Mad Junglee

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I’m a day late for #MusicMonday, I know. But this one is too good to wait for another six days. The track comes from DJ Ben G, a mashup-remix-master that has just signed on to Rukus Avenue. The remix profiled in this video is a tribute to the one and only Shammi Kapoor in a song called, “Junglee.” The video art is the work of our talented friend MadGuru.

MadGuru found 8-bit inspiration for the video from the original film.

I wanted to do something quick, which seems next to impossible in animation, and fun too. I really enjoyed the story of the film and that along with the creative sounds in Ben G’s mix made me think of old 8 bit video games like Donkey Kong and Mario Brothers. It sounded like a mashup of the two and so I thought, why not approach the visuals in the same way. Watch the original film and you’ll recognize many references in the piece. [madguru]

 

Watch the original film Junglee here and see if you can spot the references. The 8-bit video game inspired animation reminds me a lot of Das Racist’s Who’s That? Brooown! video. And of late nights playing Mario Kart in college. Bollywood 8-bit video games, now there’s an idea. How about it, MadGuru?

 

Meet the MetroPCS Guys: Q & A with Ranjit & Chad

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The MetroPCS Tech & Talk ads are a long-running series (two years in December) featuring desi characters named Ranjit and Chad expounding upon the evils of contracts and benefits of MetroPCS’s phone plans and features. The characters are not a little zany, dressing up in colonial-style wigs to declare wireless independence, playing an intense guitar-riff set off by fireworks and using “Holy shishkabob!” as a catch-phrase, to give a few examples.

As I noticed in retweets about the ads posted by the characters @ranjitmetropcs and @chadmetropcs, some people found the ads hilarious, declared themselves fans of the duo, and wanted to dress up like them for Halloween. Others writing for business and tech sites found the ads cringe-worthy, racist and/or in poor taste.

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Strings Sing With Violinder

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This past Friday, Mandeep Sethi hosted Bhangra, BBoys and Breakbeats here in the East Bay, a show where bhangra dancers were dancing to hip hop, B-boys were breaking to bhangra breakbeats and there were an incredible line-up of Desis taking the mic, turntables and tablas. It was a great showcase of talent and one talent that totally blew me away is today’s featured #MusicMonday – Violinder. He doesn’t sing, but he sure does make his violin sing!

A Bay Area based second year college student, I first heard about Raginder “Violinder” Momi when he performed at the 5K for the 5Ks Walkathon a couple months back. Looks like he has performed w/ Bhangra Knights before and got his start doing devotional music. He’s good at what he does unplugged too.

Keep an eye on this one – at this rate he’ll be touring with Kanye West in no time.

Mindy Kaling on The Daily Show

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http://youtu.be/9qrc3exhNrI

There are no actual questions about her new book on the Halloween night episode of The Daily Show featuring guest Mindy Kaling. But you’ve probably already read excerpts and other slightly more substantive interviews if you’re interested in Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me. So sit back and enjoy a six-minute segment (I would embed it here in addition to the audio book excerpt above if WordPress allowed it) in which Kaling and host Jon Stewart joke about Halloween costumes, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and her FOX News-watching, Sanjay Gupta-loving parents.

Kaling also stops by The View this morning at 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. PT/C.

Pakistani Politi-Pop from Beygairat Brigade

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The trio of young men from Lahore, Pakistan, in the pop group Beygairat Brigade (The Dishonor Brigade) seem to be singing a catchy little ditty in Punjabi complaining about their mom making potatoes and eggs when they really want to have chicken. But those are just the opening lines of their first song Aalu Anday–the lyrics appear in English subtitles. Before the video’s three minutes are up, the group has covered many topics that pack a political punch.

Dawn’s cultural critic and senior columnist Nadeem Paracha offers details on a few of the many references contained in the lyrics of Aalu Anday.

Continue reading →