This isn't me; I am bigger than this. This is my bag, tho.
I’m on the road again. This time to the USA, as Punch Records, the producers of “Soho Road to the Punjab“, will take it to New York in March 2011. So in a few hours I’m off there to meet DJ Rekha, who in ten years has developed and sustained her own healthy, innovative approach to playing, remixing and enjoying Bhangra. She’s moved it forward in time and into the consciousness of young Americans. I’m not a great traveller, but there comes a time when you have to get off the skype and get into the sky, and this is it.
“Soho Road – from the Five Rivers to the Five Boroughs” is a gift of a title – at least to me. The Punjab is, of course, the Land of the Five Rivers, while New York iconically comprises Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx. This is a symmetry just too much too leave alone – it’s a sign! Queens is the largest and the most diverse, and famous as the birthplace of bebop and jazz. Queens also has the largest Sikh population outside California and the highest concentration of Indians anywhere in America. Punjabi is in the top ten of the hundred-odd languages spoken locally, and almost half of all South Asians who live in New York live in Queens; so Punch have sent me to see what’s happening. The NY experience will shape the show for the USA.
As with all Scholars and Warriors and Punch joints of one form or another, the planning of the show is open, now, for you to get involved in. I’ll be writing about what we find out here, and especially over at www.facebook.com/SohoRoadtoUSA. Join us – give me some questions to ask and keep me on my toes.
