Kray Twinz

[DJL]

is that what you are saying happened, though, and in which instance with which tune and which producer?a straight answer is a good thing sometimes!!!

Sounds to me like Logan is saying that Low Deep did produce Str8 Flush and then sold everything including the credit of creation to the Kray Twins for their more commercial excursion with the beat and launch into top producer type territory. Perhaps he is not being straight with his answer because this is supposed to be secret but then maybe not coz he always like that on here. I may be completely wrong and its something to do with the Mundian Te Bach Ke tune but I'll leave Logan to err, clarify...

 

[gumdrops]

*is* this track a success though? so far it just seems to be a lot of journalists and industry observers excited that a british production team is working with some big name american artists (dmx, twista etc) rather than actual sales... its still early days though - i dont think its been released yet.

 

[Logan Sama]

It is out this week.

I myself hope it does well as it would reflect well on Lethal and hopefully lead to other American artists seeing credibility in our acts perhaps.

I still await the day when I can pump the new Pharrel produced Wiley track and get my Westwood bomb dropping game on point. Holla.

 

[gumdrops]

myself, i await the day when you can plug the new wiley produced pharrell track and drop the bomb on that. im still waiting for the grime equivalent of redman's i got a secret. im surprised no big name US rapper has really reached out yet.

 

[outraygeous]

imagine the day when uk record labels are more intrested in bringin in talent than doing the xfactor for the 100th time

 

[qwerty south]

the kray twinz co-produced 'mundian...' with punjabi mc according to their webshite

 

[Logan Sama]

Kray Twins aren't credited anywhere for the production of Mundian Te Bach Ke apart from interviews they have done.

Their website also says they made Why for Jadakiss... Havok produced that beat however.

 

[Woebot]

actually matt, they're defiantly NOT desi. i inbterviewed them a couple of weeks ago and they say they're straight-up hip-hop. they never really listened to bhangra and the panjabi mc track was the very first production they ever did, more as an experiment than anything else. most of their other stuff is, indeed, straight-up hip-hop and they're pretty adamant about not wanting to be seen as "asian" artists and insist that they don't use asian motifs any more than, say, timbaland. i dunno quite how far i agree with them but i certainly would go along with their statement that they are not desi producers. and as for money and a publicist doing wonderful things, there's a little more to it than that. they've been on the grind, getting to know the right people for years, are totally hooked up now (dmx went to record his verses for their album at jaz's place in coventry etc etc) and are pretty nice, honest, enthusiastic dudes who really enjoy what they're doing and are into bigging up and promoting british music, not moaning and grumbling and actually doing nothing to help.

(sighs)

dave, desi means "the asian version of..." that they insist they're not means, well, nothing. i respect the fact they dont want to be seen as asian artists, but that doesnt make my use of the term any more accurate. becasue, er, they ARE asian artists.

as I made pretty clear in my first post theres a distinction between "desi" and "bhangra". maybe you ought to spot up on that yourself....

 

[stelfox]

matt, i'm not saying anyone's wrong or getting pissy about anything other than insidery one-liners that make very little sense to anyone, which you had nothing to do with at all.
i'm simply saying what i know from a pretty lengthy conversation with these guys: that they don't really want any part of the desi scene and are pretty trenchant about it.
"that scene isn't going anywhere because most of it's rubbish" is about the mildest thing they said. i have this all on TAPE!!!
add to this the fact that the majority of their music isn't south asian-influenced in any way and i think their own views ARE important - at least as important as yours or mine, in any case.
i did read your post, trust me, i understood it fully. i don't really feel the need to go back to school on anything addressed with in it, though i do recognise that you can and frequently do teach me lots about other stuff.
none of this is meant to be disrespectful to you. i just don't agree and nor do the people you're talking about!
i think the basic point boils down to preconceptions that have come about dues to external factors, like the way they look and the baggage a little knowledge brings to the way we listen to music.
*i* would probably have called them desi if i hadn't spoken to them and i thought you might beinterested in what they had to say about that.
their contention seemed to be just because a given group of musicians wear turbans doesn't automatically make them desi. being part of the scene, making music for that audience does, however, and they don't really do any of that and don't much want to, either.

 

[Woebot]

i do think it's important when artists say they want nothing to do with a scene. it shows that they are probably not a very big part of it!

the thing is, they are MASSIVE in the Asian scene. All RDB could talk about to me last week was The Kray Twinz. check out the punjab2000 boards! they're the going concern in Asian music...

just because people wear turbans doesn't necessarily make them desi,

well technically it does. people (especially me, cos i got this wrong for ages) confused the term. Desi isnt Bhangra. all Desi means is "from afar" and it applies to anything the Asian diaspora does. Desi Music doesnt have have to have any subcontinental influence in it at all.

especially when they don't want to be!!!

this is like saying such and such Rock Musician in the UK of Afro-Caribbean descent doesnt want to be known as a musician of Afro-Caribbean descent. He is. Its not like saying he is a Reggae musician, which he may quite obviously not be, and he'd be perfectly within his rights to deny...

they might have said they don't want to be known as "Desi"- but that doesnt mean they aren't. if ya get me.

sorry to be a stick in the mud.

 

[stelfox]

i've revised my previous post a bit. hope that clears things up. anyway, i still love you matt, regardless.

 

[Woebot]

i've revised my previous post a bit. hope that clears things up. anyway, i still love you matt, regardless.

think were posting at some speed dave! you might have missed my reply. love you too feller. and no wouldnt want it to end in fisticuffs- cos you'd trounce me....

 

[stelfox]

Desi isnt Bhangra. all Desi means is "from afar" and it applies to anything the Asian diaspora does. Desi Music doesnt have have to have any subcontinental influence in it at all.

I don't get that at all. how can music that has nothing to do with anything "from afar" be termed desi? i really don't see that this is a workable definition - and the definition of desi really is they key point here.
in its broadest sense it has come to mean "with indian roots" or somesuch (i can't remember what the exact meaning is, in fact i've been given more than one which leads me to believe that it's quite a fluid term without a single, concrete meaning) but in a musical sense i've always seen it as meaning a bit more and being somewhat more loaded with sonic significance than simply "music of any variety made by absolutely anyone a bit indian not actually living in india" (not least because this would be a useless and completely daft category of music, including loads of artists who have absolutely nothing to do with each other). my problems with this idea make the afro-caribbean/reggae analogy a little off-base, really.
anyway, this is pretty interesting and is probably worth a bit more discussion when i'm not at work and can post properly. it might be even more interesting if it wasn't two thirtysomething white blokes discussing it, either. any indian people in the house who can help with this? i'd really like to resolve this, just to satisfy my own curiosity now!

 

[Woebot]

it might be even more interesting if it wasn't two thirtysomething white blokes discussing it, either. any indian people in the house who can help with this? i'd really like to resolve this, just to satisfy my own curiosity now!

lol

 

[gumdrops]

for what it's worth, im indian - desi basically just means 'of the subcontinent'. so by the kray twinz being asian, you can say they make desi music, but as for whether they make Desi Beats (the hybrid/genre), from what i've heard - and bear in mind ive only really heard the single and bits of the album, i'd have to say no. its about as qualifiable as desi-beats as MIA (not a dis, i think shes brilliant). i dont remember hearing much evidence of any asian sounds/vocals/styles on the krayz sampler i heard. but it might be worth remembering that some people are more flexible with how they use the term desi beats so just use it as a catch-all for all 'desi' (asian-made, not necessarily/obviously asian sounding) music.

 

[DonRuba]

This definition of desi, "any music being made by someone of southeast asian descent, regardless of how it sounds" seems kind of pointless and almost a bit racist to me (note that I not in any way mean that someone here is a racist or anything). But I mean if someone with southeast asian grandparents makes classical music, it's still desi? Isn't this fixation on peoples genes both pretty absurd and kind of disturbing?

 

[petergunn]

for what it's worth, im indian - desi basically just means 'of the subcontinent'. so by the kray twinz being asian, you can say they make desi music, but as for whether they make Desi Beats (the hybrid/genre), from what i've heard - and bear in mind ive only really heard the single and bits of the album, i'd have to say no. its about as qualifiable as desi-beats as MIA (not a dis, i think shes brilliant). i dont remember hearing much evidence of any asian sounds/vocals/styles on the krayz sampler i heard. but it might be worth remembering that some people are more flexible with how they use the term desi beats so just use it as a catch-all for all 'desi' (asian-made, not necessarily/obviously asian sounding) music.

ok, if all this stuff IS'NT desi, someone wanna list some stuff that is?

 

[gabriel]

ok, if all this stuff IS'NT desi, someone wanna list some stuff that is?

tigerstyle
panjabi hit squad
panjabi mc

 

[SIZZLE]

And re: did Low Deep make Str8 Flush? As a non-insider (I don't know for a fact either way) I would guess it is as Logan suggests. Low Deep made the beat, released it on his own Colorful State label (no mention of krayz anywhere on 12" label) and then Krayz bought the rights, including those to claim to have produced it. They then remixed it and put Twista on it and there you go. I'd say if you want to really be sure go back and compare the two, to my ears the Krayz version sounds as if they've sampled Low Deep (just the 'over over' sample) directly from his track, and you can hear it.

An interesting detail on this (read in some krayz interview) is that Twista spit his bars for free. And I agree, it is a forward for the UK scene and in that respect is cool. I would have preferred Twista over the Low Deep original though, much stronger beat to my ears.

 

[viktorvaughn]

Maybe a useful clarification to bring to the table would be that of desi Vs Desi??

Why not use Desi to simply mean music produced by people of south-east asian and desi to refer to an actual genre of music with certain qualities with an archtypal sound.

So Desi would be a description of socio-economic artisitc production and desi and actual genre description. I think that might work?

Re: it being negative to have a catch-all term to describe the music of the Indian Diaspora, I don't agree. I think the fact that it would encompass a broad range of genres and styles a positive reflection of its variety. It would only become silly if people mistook it for a genre of music and began to infer stereotypical sonic attributes from the term.