Diaspora: The Influence of South Asia In Western Music
Growing up, it took me a lot of time to gain the confidence to proudly promote my South Asian culture as part of my British identity, and music was one of those key drivers for me to reach this point.
But it was not just music influenced by South Asia. I was inspired by music from a wide range of diasporas (in other words, people spreading from their original homeland to other countries across the world), whether it be Ethiopian, Cuban or Korean, concocting the diversity that I can celebrate in almost every London setting I visit. All of these artists were equally as proud of their own identity and emphasised this happiness in various ways through everything from samples to singing style to cultural references in lyrics.
Specifically for this article, I wanted to explore a few songs by artists of South Asian descent that I feel have made a huge impact in the music industry but also on the lives of countless second-generation Asian people. They have demonstrated how all of us can be comfortable to share our languages and heritage openly in conversation. Regardless of your ethnic background, please give these artists a listen, and hopefully we will all continue learning from each other to make music even more of a shared experience.
“Rapping 2 U” by Das Racist (2010)
Not only was this song the first time I’d heard the use of Indian cultural references in U.S. hip-hop (‘more cash money than Mukesh Ambani’ ‘Kalidasa, but across the Kalipani’), but it was also the song that inspired my love of the Japanese anime show Samurai Champloo (highly recommend) with its backing sample. That’s just a summary of the type of people that Das Racist are — people that don’t worry about the notion of having ‘split identities’ as second-generation immigrants. Instead, their music goes about mixing-and-matching diverse roots (everything from Afro-Cuban to Indian) with N.Y. slang and random interests as if it’s nothing. Heems (real name Himanshu Suri) — perhaps the most commercially prominent amongst the trio — represents Das Racist’s relationship to India’s Punjab. His own path in music is a great go-to for more South Asian diasporic hip-hop and R&B (look up his work with Riz Ahmed as the Swet Shop Boys, or his solo album Eat Pray Thug).
Though they ponder on trivial things as comedians/rappers/cultural connoisseurs, don’t let their chilled vibes and humour disguise their impact. As far as South Asian rappers go in the U.S., they’ve created a fantastically chaotic multicultural discourse, emphasising that the notion of the “Western identity” is practically obsolete in countries brimming with diversity. These are the groundbreaking icons right here, even if they made a song (“Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell Remix”) where they repeat ‘I’m at the Pizza Hut’ and ‘I’m at the Taco Bell’ about a hundred times.
“Traces Of You” by Anoushka Shankar & Norah Jones (2013)
To provide context to the song, Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar are half-sisters, sharing a father in Ravi Shankar — a revered figure in Indian classical music and famed for bridging the genre’s gap from Western pop music, with his work being a significant influence in the discography of The Beatles’ George Harrison. The album from which this track comes from, Traces Of You, serves in part as a memorial to their father passing in 2012.
Nevertheless, I feel the effect of the album instead serves as a testament to how far the sisters have come by themselves — and how close their bond has become — in spite of their distance growing up. Norah Jones is a preeminent jazz-blues-country-folk artist topping charts in the U.S., whereas Anoushka Shankar is a world-renowned sitar virtuoso and composer. On “Traces Of You”, their disparate pursuits in music find a middle ground to connect to their father, and create easily one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. Neither artist concedes their forte — Norah poetically melds nostalgia and melancholy as she describes how the memories of her father ‘linger like a tear drop’, whereas Anoushka accompanies her sister’s awe-inspiring vocals with the divine atmosphere created by the sitar. I genuinely think, for its length of just under four minutes, they must’ve tapped into what heaven must be like.
“Str8 Outta Mumbai” by Jai Paul (2013)
Jai Paul is the definition of enigmatic. He is a being who exists purely within the music he creates, whereas his human form and activities are evasive of any attention whatsoever. It makes me proud for the South Asian community to have found their answer for Kanye and Burial, embodied by this mysterious astronaut-like figure floating in distorted soundscapes of muffled voices, Hollywood and Bollywood film samples, and of whom professes love in a manner equally as whimsical as it is strangely philosophical. “Str8 Outta Mumbai” shows him making promises to his beloved that ‘I wanna help you, I know I can’, when his adventures into the abstract might actually not permit him to do so. He is not too immature for a relationship, but the romanticism of his lyrics is more likely the way that he can translate his artistry into a form that humanity can understand.
From the damage of having his debut album prematurely leaked in 2013 (which was officially released as Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones) six years later), and his blessing of two singles (“He”/“Do You Love Her Now”) in 2019, the future is certainly uncertain for what we can expect from Jai Paul. Weirdly enough, I reckon he would make an interesting Bollywood playback singer. He’d make cinema audiences jump with every atmospheric switch that his songs undergo, and have people straining their ears trying to find words to sing along to. But what would make him a pleasant addition to its history is his passion for digging into the archives of South Asian culture, then crafting an exhibition from these fragments as part of the ever-changing electronic underground.
“Bad Girls” by M.I.A. (2012)
The charisma of artists like M.I.A is unrivaled, and her success can be attributed to an unrelenting and unapologetic boldness in every song that she produces and releases to the world. Her music delves into the little-covered impact of colonialism, corruption and conflict that is afflicting South Asia (particularly regarding the repression of Tamil people by a tyrannical government in her Sri Lankan homeland). Accordingly, she has created a legacy as one of the millennium's most influential artists and political voices in music.
“Bad Girls” is a victory lap for the possibilities she has exemplified for oppressed women and ethnic minorities worldwide. The brashness in her lyricism (‘banging on the radio’), her creation of a platform for unheard voices in wars and societies that are distorted by Western media — all of these approaches are necessary to have the uncomfortable conversations in our comfortable positions, conversations on how to change the world that’s ‘bouncing like a trampoline’.
The carpe diem phrase ‘live fast die young’ defines her call to action for women worldwide. She wants them to stand up and drive into the sunset without any afterthought, for this freedom is their right as much as their oppressor’s. As the song establishes — by shaping ourselves against how a corrupt governing power thinks we should behave, we encourage its own carelessness in how it treats us as unique individuals.
“Jogi” by Panjabi MC (1995)
After releasing the hit “Mundian To Bach Ke”, I think that Panjabi MC’s entrance into mainstream playlists has neglected his other incredible contributions for the development of the Brit-Asian music scene. Whilst experimenting with various vocal samples from legendary bhangra songs, the Coventry-born DJ also brought elements of the UK underground to a global audience in the process, with a particular focus on alternative hip-hop and trip-hop.
Furthermore, as seen earlier with the work of Das Racist, Panjabi MC creates music based on this ‘chaotic multicultural discourse’. As “Jogi” starts, the American ring announcement — typically used to introducing a famous headline act or Western icon in the U.S. — is followed by two traditional Punjabi vocalists casually conversing at a hip-hop tempo. The music video dives into this confusion further, with Indian bhangra singers dressed up as rappers and women dancing in saris, exotic leopards roaming around a jazz quartet, and an elderly Indian classical musician looking both lost and in harmony with these surroundings. This represents the blissful chaos of a multicultural society — a point where we’re so displaced in each other’s cultures that borders are meaningless.
I hope you have enjoyed looking over what is just a small insight into how South Asia has influenced Western music. There are so many other examples who have had an impact: Talvin Singh, Joy Crookes, and Abhi The Nomad, to name a few more. I guess one conclusion from this is (like I previously found) it’s definitely challenging for some people to show a part of their identity that comes from a minority ethnic background. However, like these artists have shown, our differences are our strength, and their music would have not had the same unique power if it were not influenced by South Asian roots. Diaspora is one of the most intriguing things, for it truly proves that you’re never restricted to identifying under a single ethnic identity in our modern society.
