Got the Bombay Blues?

Tanuja Desai Hidier is a writer/singer-songwriter, born and raised in the USA and now based in London. Her first novel, ‘Born Confused’, the first ever South Asian American coming-of-age story, set in the context of New York City’s bhangra/underground club scene was held in high esteem leaving a lasting impression on anyone who read it. Hidier took on the role of musician when she released ‘When we were Twins’ an album of original songs based on ‘Born Confused’. It was featured in Wired Magazine for being a first-ever booktrack;

Colors of Abiogenesis

If you have not heard of the Nagaland band Abiogenesis, we won’t blame you. Neither did we know about them. We spotted them by chance at an event in Mumbai where they had come to perform for ‘Colors of North East Festival’ in early August 2015. Their performance at the event left everyone spellbound. Their music was nothing short of something exotic, something we had never heard at all, though they claimed to have performed in Mumbai several times.

“As a soloist it has been a learning experience for me” Nucleya

He is a one-man army under the onstage alias ‘Nucleya’ and is regarded as a pioneer of the dubstep genre in India. Beginning his career in the late ’90s as a co-founder of Bandish Projekt along with friend and long-time collaborator Mayur Narvekar, Udyan Sagar which is his real name, decided to switch places with BP to ‘work with different styles of music’. Today Nucleya has dabbled in genres like Bollywood and glitch-hop and has performed at several international music festivals like Glastonbury, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Lille 3000 and the Electron Festival in Switzerland exposing his music to a very different sort of audience.

“Its important to have a blend of all genres which makes the mix different” – Bombay Bassment

This band’s performance is truly vibrant, lively and dynamic. Bobkat the rapper knows how to get his crowd to swing, be it at a club in your neighbourhood or at a music festival. Bombay Bassment rocks, blending genres of hip-hop, rap, reggae, funk, Dancehall and Drum ‘n Bass.

“Creativity of an artist matters more than the gender.” – DJ Kini Rao

With rhythm in her soul, funk in her attitude, Kini has been steadily creating waves in the house music scene in India. Starting off as resident DJ at Poison Hyderabad, Kini rose through the ranks to open for headline acts such as dOP, Darren Emerson, Dale Anderson and Anil Chawla (Global Underground), Djuma Soundsystem, James Harcourt (Twisted Frequency) and Jody Wisternoff (Way OutWest).

“Voyage is a musical journey through various cultures as seen through my Indian lens” Dhruv Ghanekar

Dhruv Ghanekar is well known in Mumbai circles, not only because he is the co founder of Blue Frog, but more so because the music he makes is the kind he thoroughly enjoys making. As founder of rock band Chakraview sometime in the nineties, Dhruv’s tryst with music like many musicians has never changed. Besides scoring the music for a host of Bollywood movies and ad films, his most recent foray was the creation of his own record label Wah Wah Music on which his second album is on.

“Swarathma comes from Swar (note) and Athma (soul)” Jishnu Dasgupta

Formed in Mysore, Swarathma came into being when vocalist-songwriter Vasu Dixit met Abhinanth Kumar with the aim of creating original music. Joined by Pavan Kumar KJ on percussions and Arjun on the violin, they formed the original line-up. With Dixit’s exit in 2003 the band went on to take a two-year break, but regrouped in 2006 with Montry Manuel on drums.

“It was really awesome to have done collaboration with Salim sir”: Armaan Malik

Some guys have all the luck….. is the title of a 80s pop song by pop legend Rod Stewart. Even before he could make a mark on the scene with his debut album, Armaan Malik has already created a storm in his own way. We can certainly say that this holds true for a select few who try to make a mark in the ever competitive world of music and by that we mean Bollywood music.

“The guy in Ludhiana is no different from the guy in Mumbai.” Shailendra Singh

What started as an advertising agency about 30 years back, Percept has now emerged as a media conglomerate with business interests ranging across media, communications and entertainment, all of this under the leadership of Shailendra Singh.

“For any independent band, they have it tough in this country.” Reverrse Polarity

Reverrse Polarity is a five-piece Hardcore/Progressive Metal band from Mumbai that was formed in April 2008, but actually took off sometime in September that year. They write about contemporary topics which help them connect to the young generation. The specialty of the band is the subtle Indian touch that they give to all their compositions.