Asian Music
Week 10, Lecture 1
Today, we will discuss…
•Music as “DOING”
•A Brief Historical Context of Britain
•Defining “Asian”
•Radical Sista & Bally Sagoo
•Asian Dub Foundation
Please remember what
DOING includes:
1.Political Participation
2.Resistance
3.Public Expression
4.Ethical Interactions
5.* (Beyond Writing?)
Some Comparisons
Select Migrations to UK (post-1947)
Defining “ASIAN”
•A=British Guiana B=Uganda C=Sri Lanka
•D=Pakistan E=India F=Bangladesh
•G=Fiji H=Mauritius
Asian Migrations to Britain
•Many arrive during the 18th-19th century
•Links with the British Empire
•Most arrive after 1947
•2001 Census: >2.3 million British Asians
1950s-1960s
•Workers from India and Pakistan (Bangladesh*)
•Labor shortage following WWII
•Cheap Labor
•Part of larger migration into Europe
•Mostly men arrived
•Rural origins (Punjab)
1950s-1960s
•Doctors and Nurses from India and Pakistan
•Shortage of health care workers in Britain
•More families arrive
•Asian and Black organizations started
•Organizing laborers to fight for rights
1960s-1970s
•Asians Refugees from Uganda, Kenya, Zanzibar (E. Africa)
•Mostly Gujaratis
(in contrast to Punjabis)
Some Responses to Asian Migrations
•Busing of Asian children to schools outside of areas where they lived
•Discrimination in Housing and Employment
•Racism
•Assimilation & Dispersal Policies
•Immigration Act: Limit Asians into country
•Anti-Immigration Movements
1. Enoch Powell-- “Rivers of Blood”
2. National Front
3. British National Party
“Carnival Against the Nazis”
•London, 1978; 80,000 people
•(A Response to Eric Clapton)
“Rock Against
Racism”
•SOLIDARITY:
•Working-Class
•Youth Movement
•“Proud to be Gay”
•Anti-Racist
•Punks
•Black and White Artists
•Asian and Afro-Caribbean Alliance=Black Power
“I got a lot of letters from the BNP and the NF and stuff. I used to get death threats every week.”
Radical Sista
Asian Dub Foundation
“[The album] was a response to an increase in blatant, daytime racist attacks against people of color. It was also during the time when Britain’s first BNP fascist councillor was elected.”
Dr. Das
(Aniruddha Das)
Genre 1: Hindi Film Music
•“Music originates from your life in Britain…”
•Taking Indian songs and mixing them according to new British contexts
•“Classic example, when people first heard Churaliya (Stolen)…a lot of people didn’t even know it was an old song…All of a sudden they were playing both versions on the radio…” (Bally Sagoo)
•Churaliya (original)
•Churaliya (re-mix)
Bally Sagoo
•“I’ve done so many different languages, I don’t have to understand the language, people don’t have to understand the language.” (277)
Genre 2: Bhangra
•Folk dance from the Punjab
Radical Sista
•RADICAL:
1.Departing markedly
2. from the usual or customary
1.2. Favoring or effecting
1. fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions
•SISTA
Radical Sista
•“My god Bally Sagoo’s doing Indian music…”(270)
•A role model for Asian women in Britain
•Daytime Discos/Dos
Bally Sagoo on the reception of Asian music
•Indian music is now consumed in British society (Indian music as British music?)
•“It is getting the non-Asians into what we are doing…”
•Getting British Asians into Indian music
•Hurdles of getting on the radio, UK charts and clubs
•Problems of racism
The Bally-Effect?
•Britain’s Got Talent: Suleman Mirza
Asian Dub Foundation (ADF)
•Dub:
•A form of music that evolved out of Raggae in the 1960s
•Emphasizing Drum and Bass Frequencies
•Remixing of prerecorded sound as a mode of artistic expression
•ADF: hybrid of dub bass, electronica, punk guitar and Indian classical elements
•(Please bring lyrics to class.)
Themes
•Black and White United (Black & White)
•Building this Community of Sound (B & W)
•This is the Digital Underclass (Hypocrite)
•Time to Join in the Fight (Free Satpal Ram)
•All Together We can Defend the Whole Community (Operation Eagle Eye)
•Now a Change Gonna Come (Change)
•ADF is here to show you how it should be done…(Change)