Word: bhangra
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...Taking the rhythms of the Punjab and combining them with jubilant pop hooks, Mehndi introduced the world to a new dance genre, bhangra, that was happier than hip-hop and as irresistible as disco. Bhangra clubs sprang up around the world, fostering a movement that today stretches from the Punjab to Paris, from London's Southall to Manhattan's Soho. And Mehndi was bhangra's king. He released six albums that sold millions worldwide, and his deliriously cheerful tunes (with names like "Bolo Tararara") defined a new sound for kids and clubbers alike. In 1999 an American critic, stunned...
...Whatever the truth to this murky affair, the 36-year-old Happy Daddy of bhangra is now attempting an almost superhuman comeback, releasing a new album this month that he expects to put him back on top. It won't be easy. Not only is he returning from a controversy that nearly annihilated his sunshine image. But the bhangra scene has left its founding father far behind. There's a new breed of younger, tougher British bhangra kings in Rishi Rich and Panjabi MC. Rich, in particular, has taken the music to heights Mehndi never dreamed of, fusing it with...
...brash young man seizes the stage of Manhattan's Broadway Theater, sings and dances to a vigorous bhangra and, feeling his rock-star-in-the-making oats, shouts, "Are ya with me, Bombay? ... Are ya with me, New York?" This scene from the new musical Bombay Dreams poses the cultural question of the moment. South Asian pop--Bollywood movies, Indian music and dance, the whole vibrant masala of subcontinental culture--not only enthralls a billion Indians at home but also spans half the world, from Africa and the Middle East to Eastern Europe and the Indian diaspora in Britain...
...most fertile areas for East-West cross-pollinations is music. At S.O.B.'s in New York City, Rekha Malhotra, a.k.a. DJ Rekha, plays bhangra, a cool fusion of electronic dance and hip-hop beats with traditional Indian folk sounds. So popular is Rekha, 33, that her parties have become tourist attractions. "I can go anywhere in the country," she says, "and someone will go, 'Oh, I've been to Basement Bhangra.'" At Sonotheque in Chicago, Brian Keigher, 31, spins a popular fusion style known as "Asian underground"--fast, irresistibly danceable music studded with sitars and thumping tablas. Wade your...
...Rahman's fans was Andrew Lloyd Webber, who had caught Dil Se on TV and was entranced by Chaiyya Chaiyya, an all-time irresistible bhangra sung on the roof of a speeding train. Lloyd Webber had found not just an inventive composer but also the solution to a vexing problem. "Musical theater had become very predictable," Rahman says. "I think Andrew felt that Bollywood musicals could be a new treat for the Western audience." Bombay Dreams (about half new Rahman songs, half greatest hits from his movies) has run for nearly two years in the West End. This week...