Another 90s Hype Thread - "Asian" (Pop)Music in the UK

firefinga

Well-known member
Was flipping thru my old music mags during the weekend.... Noticed there was a little hype going on regarding "Asians" in UK pop music of sorts. Pardon me though, I am neither British nor Asian, I know next to nothing about it, or even if it was a "thing" at all.

There were Cornershop, Voodo Queens, Asia Dub Foundation, Apache Indian, Bhangra House...
 
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sadmanbarty

Well-known member
I was saying this to luke a few months back.

at the turn of the millenium there was a huge explosion of british-indian culture in the uk. not just in music, but 'bend it like beckham', there were sitcoms, etc.

it was short lived and i don't know how it died.

nowadays any mention of south asian culture is about pakistanis rather than indians.
 

Numbers

Well-known member
This stuff was very cool when I was adolescent, or at least I thought so. There was heaps of it: Talvin Singh, Transglobal Underground, Fun-Da-Mental, ... Listening back now, most (if not all) of it is completely unbearable. Time is not kind, wow.
 

droid

Well-known member
No doubt demographically related. 2nd gen immigrant kids coming of age. There was a BBC doc on recently about early/mid 90's alcohol free Indian/Asian teenage bhangra raves that were apparently huge at the time.
 

Numbers

Well-known member
No doubt demographically related. 2nd gen immigrant kids coming of age. There was a BBC doc on recently about early/mid 90's alcohol free Indian/Asian teenage bhangra raves that were apparently huge at the time.

Isn't there also a changed attitude, though? Now just the world spirituality makes me cringe already, but as a teen I obviously thought this Indian-inspired, often semi-contemplative stuff was deep and very much worthwile. The fact that these acts were rather popular and would even get well booked here on the continent makes me think I probably wasn't alone.

lt could also relate to how the West constructs its 'elsewhere' as interesting and worthy of attention. The Indian subcontinent being attractive at the time partly because responding to all our orientalist clichés, partly because it was a rising star of the BRIC countries. Something similar is happening with China nowadays. Tzusing anyone?
 

firefinga

Well-known member

Monsoon scored a hit in the UK Charts with the above song (track) in may 1982. They had a singer of Indian descent named Sheila Chandra.
 
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catalog

Well-known member
Cornershop are a boss band, always have been, always will be. ADF were one of the best British bands end of story. Sad about the state of master d nowadays tho and the band itself is a bit of a shell. I think master d's mc'ing on the facts and fiction LP is some of the best 'political' UK mc'ing ever.

I think the reason this thing is not so much of a thing now is to do with most British Asians being quite assimilated/integrated into British culture, so theres not the chalk that there perhaps used to be. Dunno. The racism that now exists in UK society is way more complex and less overt, much more internalised and harder to see.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
How much of this (as a mainstream thing) has to do with the post-Britpop middlebrow-pop power vacuum of the late 1990s?
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I think it has a connection to Britpop in that Britpop was a 60s nostalgia trip, which meant the inevitable involvement of sitars. Dunno where Timbaland's use of indian music (and this trend in rap/rnb generally) fits in here.
 

droid

Well-known member
From the late ‘80s to the ‘90s, now defunct daytime raves (or ‘daytimers’) were a staple of U.K. rave culture, playing bhangra, garage, and Bollywood/hip-hop mash ups for a generation of British Asians. Some of the best stories in British club history took place at these events, held in small U.K. cities and London’s sleepy suburbs. Yet while the annals of club history are densely packed with anecdotes of London venues like Fabric, dubstep incubator Plastic People, and grime rave destination Cable, it’s harder to find accounts of British nightlife which give credit to the contributions of immigrant communities. This BBC Network East report is one of the only surviving documents of daytimers.

https://www.thefader.com/2017/01/10/british-asian-daytimers-history-riz-ahmed
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I think it has a connection to Britpop in that Britpop was a 60s nostalgia trip, which meant the inevitable involvement of sitars.
I guess I'm thinking more of that weird period - maybe 97 til the early 2000s, I dunno - when Britpop was pretty obviously in decline, and the NME / Evening Session axis of the music media ended up killing time between Stereophonics records by randomly talking-up a weirdly diverse assortment minor hypes in case any of them turned out to be the Next Big Thing.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Am I wrong in thinking that there was more pride in multicultralism in that time period - and that this was connected with the whole 'Cool Britannia' thing (e.g. Goldie, Tricky), albeit supplemental to the white rock bands at its centre.

My view of the 90s is always skewed by my age at the time but I feel like everything was a lot more optimistic during that time, and things took a definite turn for the darkward around the turn of the millenium. But perhaps that's just a cliche I'm allowing to colour my memories.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member

9/11 marked the end of the multi-cultural love in and more and particularly this south asian cultural blossoming.

blair projected this idea of britishness as being cosmopolitan and multi-cultural as well as being a world power. i can't think of a major politician since blair to actually project any idea of britishness at all. thatcher did it particularly after the brighton bombings and the falklands. may well be the appeal of boris, mogg and farage; they most prominently advocate for ideas of what britishness is.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
there was an indian family on eastenders back in the day and after 9/11 they went comic relief to victims of hate crimes in the queen vic.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
the other question is why was it an international phenomenon?

bollywood riddim, washout riddim, timbaland, milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
 

firefinga

Well-known member
How much of this (as a mainstream thing) has to do with the post-Britpop middlebrow-pop power vacuum of the late 1990s?

As I understand it, that "Asian" hype was very much an early 90s thing. However, Cornershop had their most successful phase in the eraly 2000s if I remember correctly.

Regarding Apache Indian, he actually had some minor success even "on the continent", I remember him touring Germany and Austria in 92 or 93. I think, Apache Indian's success might have had something to do with Ragga being somewhat hyped in the early 90s as well, Shabba for instance scoring chart hits as well...
 
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