CNN just published an interesting article on DJ Rekha [asx movie], a South Asian who was recently nominated for Best DJ by New York Magazine. Her real name is Rekha Malhotra — but in the US she’s pretty much known as the Queen of Bhangra. I went to NYC a year ago and my uncle and I went to SOBs. It’s a jazz/hip hop/R&B club in the heart of NYC that hosts a wide variety of popular artists every night but is known for its Basement Bhangra party every first Thursday of the month. If you ever learn about the popularity of bhangra/fusion in the U.S., Basement Bhangra will always be mentioned — and DJ Rekha founded it. It’s pretty cool to see South Asians (or anyone for that matter) coming from a traditional culture and pushing their cultural boundaries to do new and influential things in a completely different environment.. but still keeping that traditional flavor (in the case of Rekha it’d be bhangra mixed with house/reggae/hip hop). I … probably couldn’t do anything like that as a software engineer, but in anything else.. well, that’s an inspiration.
October 16, 2006
