Culture
Muslimgauze: Beyond the Hypnotic Sufi Gimmick
Why am I not blessed with the kinda music which Bryn Jones dished out under the banner Muslimgauze? This is the question one can’t help asking in a climate of fear and victimhood. Next month 15 years will have been over since the passing away of Jones. We listen to politics trumpeted. But once in […]
Coke Studio, Pakistan
There are no billboards on the streets. For the last four years, a week or so before the new season of Coke Studio is launched, most of the important billboards in major Pakistani cities are taken up by snazzy advertisements announcing the featured artists of the season. It’s the biggest annual ad campaign for any […]
Glastonbury & Lo, and Painting weds sounds
Glastonbury 2013: For music buffs, I update two tidings, one sad mixed with one really good. Glastonbury 2013 is under way. For those who have not heard about Glastonbury for the first time, I would like to spare the Wikipedia break by simply explaining it: The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts is a festival […]
Street Musicians’ Day: Delight Unrestrained
Street is where culture remains unrestrained. Much before social networking media and file-sharing systems developed, street had beckoned our artistes to gather and perform, when multi-billion studios and production houses closed their doors on people who have skills but hardly any wherewithal to approach production managers. Now we have Google id; log in to YouTube; […]
Tracing the Pragaash: Hard-lines of Melophobia
February, this year Pragaash (means First Light) – the first all-girl-musical-band of Kashmir after a brief musical journey in the beginning decided to quit in the wake of a fatwa issued against them. The band members had live performances spiced with music and energy to make the people around them happy, but what they got […]
A Spectrum of Exotic Bands
A stage for diverse music traditions in the world and different cultures, Rainforest Music Festival for the year 2013 will be held on June 28-30 in Kuching, Malaysia. The major theme underlying in this gathering of sound is this: each band and each performer is a unit of voice/voices. When units come together in a […]
In Rapture with a Sarod
With certain fingers, a Sarod is more than an instrument and music is more than music. Longing is more than what you thought it was. When Ustad Amjad Aali Khan sits with his sarod and his fingers move along its strings, the sarod sobs, weeps, cries, wails, grumbles, groans, murmurs, smiles, laughs, giggles, yells and […]
Mappilas too Hop from their Hips
We’ve quoted Sami Alim, hip-hop historian to explain the word hip-hop, you can read the article here, click. “In hip-hop, personal and political memories converge and the most vociferous (which in the hip-hop glossary is a positive adjective) hip-hop expression, or any cultural expression for that matter, comes out of the most traumatic memory one has. […]
Palestinian Streets Sing
Review of Slingshot Hip-Hop, a documentary narrating the Plaestinian street music Slingshot Hip-Hop is a documentary film directed by Jackie Reem Salloum, the American- Arab film activist featuring the Hip-Hop lives of Palestine. The Documentary captures the moments of various hip-hop movements in Palestine who struggle to resist against the Israeli occupation of their land […]
They Sing Ishhumar, Their Exile
With the 54th Grammy Awards for the best world music album going to Tinariwen, a band born in Libya and brought up in the Sahara desert of Mali, a West African landlocked region, the accolade has added to the fame and stature of the African musical team. The band consists of artists Mustapha Ag Ahmed, […]
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