October 26, 2005
Where???!!!!
A long time customer recently asked me a question that stumped me. Simply put, "Where is the cutting edge music?" All I could do was point to him the old Nation and Outcaste recordins, DJ Swami, Stereo Nation (not his pop stuff), and Talvin Singh. So where is it? Where is the edge? What happened to the passion of music? The feeling that something is here, that the old rules dont apply. Except for the same recycled compilations and the new trend of lounge, where is music that makes you wanna get up and sing at the top of your lungs in the car or dive into the middle of the dance floor??
Instead, we got recycled samples with original vocals, remixes from India!!!!, and mish mash of old housy music that should have been retired years ago. In other word, where is the next Mundeya To Bach KE (mind you with recyled beats)? Where are the originals for bhangra music, for Asian Underground/Overground/Skyabove (call it what you will), where are they?
Or are in a vacuum and destined to be forever to be serenaded by the likes of Sanj and Harry Anand, have we lost the original composition? Or has it gone way of Raghav and Jay Sean, nearly unrecognizable as South Asian yet full of that essence anyway.
So where is it? I have heard whispers of names, Kid SKilly, Bohemia, Karmacy, Pramanak, Mira Veda,and from London all i hear is hip hop samples with the vocals lost among them. Is that the new generation? Yet somehow, even they are not the cutting edge, they dont represent what Nitin Sawhney and Fundamental brought to the table. If anything, they are just representative of the youth, so where does that leave us?
Where is DJ Swami when you truly need him? Who has he passed the gauntlet to?
Those were the questions that rankled my brain as I handed that long time customer several compilations and a puzzled shrug,
Where is it??
Posted by zibasunj at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)